DWARVES OF OUR LIVES: A HOBBIT'S SOAP OPERA
by LilLolaBlue
Summary: This is the shocking tale of sex, sin, and Smaug that Tolkein dared not tell! Belladonna Baggins agreed to be the Burglar for the Company led by the majestic, moody and magnificent Thorin Oakenshield. But, little did Gandalf know that Thorin stole Bella's heart away from his nephew, only to break it! What will the Heirs of Durin do, to win the heart of a Took? Tune in & find out!
1. Rather a Good Adventure

**DWARVES OF OUR LIVES: A HOBBIT'S SOAP OPERA**

**Prelude**

**The Prancing Pony, Bree, Arnor, in a Parallel Universe Middle Earth.**

Thorin Oakenshield was never a dwarf to stand on ceremony, or to waste an opportunity when it presented itself.

And so it was that when he saw the wizard at the Prancing Pony, he decided to speak to Gandalf the Grey.

Immediately.

"'Master Gandalf, I know you only by sight, but now I should be glad to speak with you. For you have often come into my thoughts of late, as if I were bidden to seek you. Indeed I should have done so, if I had known where to find you."

Gandalf looked at him with wonder.

"That is strange, Thorin Oakenshield." he said.

"For I have thought of you also; and though I am on my way to the Shire, it was in my mind that is the way also to your halls."

"Call them so, if you will." said Thorin.

"They are only poor lodgings in exile. But you would be welcome there, if you would come. For they say that you are wise and know more than any other of what goes on in the world; and I have much on my mind and would be glad of your counsel."

"I will come,' said Gandalf; 'for I guess that we share one trouble at least. The Dragon of Erebor is on my mind, and I do not think that he will be forgotten by the grandson of Thrór."

"I never forget, Gandalf. And I never forgive."

"That is one of the defining characteristics of Dwarves. And also of Tooks. I see that your nephew, Fili is in your company, but that his brother, Kili, is not. That is a strange thing."

"Kili is in the Shire. He has a woman there, and he is very serious about her, for a boy his age. He has gone to stop her from marrying an Elf. Which would be a terrible fate, for any woman, of any race."

"That is quite a coincidence, for I had been invited to the Shire, to attend the wedding of Belladonna Baggins to an Elf named Coruadan. It was an ill-starred union, for the brides' mother, Belldonna Took refused to attend and so did the entire clan of Tooks. However, the groom has deserted his bride to be, and robbed her. Though it is good that Miss Baggins did not marry such a bounder, it is rather less good that she has gotten rid of him in such a painful and embarrassing way."

Gandalf was surprised that Thorin became agitated.

"And I am to bear another insult from these bastard Elves, in silence! Before I kill a dragon I will kill an Elf, and take his head! Fili, finish your pint, for we have war to make!"

"But how are you insulted, Thorin Oakenshield?"

"The Elf insults my nephew. And he insults the clan of Tooks, who are allies to the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains. So he insults me."

"That is an interesting way for you to phrase your grievance. For I have heard that the insult to you might be more direct."

"More direct?"

"Idle gossip, Gandalf."

"Nonetheless, Thorin, your war has already been made. For Mr. Butterbur has told me that Coruadan took refuge at the Prancing Pony and that he sent word to Miss Baggins. The thief had hidden the money he had stolen, but he could not hide himself from the wrath of a Took. Or of an heir of Durin. She and your nephew dragged him from his horse, and Bella beat him senseless in the street. While he lay there, the two of them took charge of his horse and his purse, and anything he had on him that had value, and traded for four excellent ponies, with saddle and bridle. I believe if you call at the stable, two of those ponies will be awaiting you and Fili."

"Fili, go to the stable and fetch our ponies. We will ride back to the Blue Mountains and assemble the Company. Our quest is at hand."

"What about Kili?"

"You should go to the Shire, at once, and start along your way with him. I have further Council to take with Gandalf."

"What about Bella?"

"Yes, Thorin, what about Bella?" Gandalf asked.

"The Hobbit? What of her? She can marry Kili when the quest is finished."

"What, lose two husbands in one year? And you think Kili will leave Bella behind? You go and tell her that, yourself, Uncle, I like the way me head is, without it having a great whopping battle axe stuck through the middle of it." Fili snorted.

That defused Thorin's haughty manner, somewhat.

"By Durin's brass bollocks, Fili lad, I'm already draggin' you and the other boy along, now you expect me to drag a woman to the other side of the world, to kill a dragon? And not just any worm, but Smaug? And for another thing, I'm not talkin' to that thick-skulled Took! For I'd surely end the discussion with an' an axe of me own fookin makin' stuck through me own head!"

"I have a suggestion. You would be a company of 13, a very unlucky number. And you have no burglar, in an expedition to seize a treasure. If Miss Baggins would accompany you, 14 is a very lucky number. And Hobbits are small, clever, and very good at not being seen. She would make an excellent burglar." Gandalf interrupted.

"Burglar! D'you know how much money that Bungo Baggins left his girl? Not coutin' Bag End! She's a bloody heiress, by Durin's beard , Gandalf! What would she need to steal?" Thorin protested.

"An adventure." Gandalf replied.

"Adventure? By the bristly arse hairs of Mahal who made us, and the beard of Odin who made him, it'll be a fookin' adventure with the likes of the old Took's granddaughter in tow! A fookin' adventure you'll regret to have taken up! Fili, don't speak a word of it to the girl. Let Gandalf ask her. And don't tell your brother. When he opens his mouth, his guts fall out."

Fili went on his way, and Thorin banged his mug on the table.

"Bring me a pitcher, Butterbur, for I'm the fookin' horse's arse goin' on an adventure with a bloody Took!"

Gandalf thought he heard Thorin mutter something under his breath, something about if the Hobbit gave him the usual amount of grief and bollocks then he'd sell his pony, braid Bella Baggins hair into pigtails, use them as reins and ride her fine big Hobbit arse all the way to Erabor, and she'd thank him for it.

But, then again, he might have said anything under his breath.

And Gandalf was not a wizard to put any stock in rumors and gossip.

Much.

**Chapter One: Rather A Good Adventure Than A Bad Marriage**

**Bag End, The Shire**

Gandalf had expected that he would find Belladonna Baggins in a less than cheerful mood when he arrived at Bag End.

She was sitting on the bench in her garden, looking rather downcast, but she had not forgotten her manners.

"Good morning." She said.

Without much conviction.

"What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?" Gandlaf elaborated.

Bella blew a smoke ring.

"I think I was inquiring as to whether you were you having a good morning, sir?" she asked.

"Better than you are, Belladonna Baggins."

"It seems you know me, but I don't know you. At least I don't think I do."

"That is because I am Gandalf. And you do know me."

Bella looked at him, thoughtfully.

"Gandalf? My grandfather's friend, who always made such interesting fireworks? Why, of course I know you! But it's been quite some time. Twenty years. Since Grandfather Took's wake. Well I should have known you sooner, it's not as if I was a baby, I was I've gotten much taller since i was 15. So everything and everyone looks different. I suppose Mum must have invited you to the wedding. Well, there won't be one. I've been stood up."

"I had heard about that. But I came to the Shire, nonetheless, because I thought you might appreciate a bit of a holiday?"

"What kind of a holiday?"

"An adventure. Concerning a long voyage, great peril, a dragon, and some 13 Dwarves."

"So, he's finally got his act together, has he?"

"Who?"

"You know who. That son of an orc's warg, Thorin Oakenshield! I ended up in this mess with that Elf because of him."

Gandalf sat beside Bella, and took out his pipe.

"How?"

"Well, I had him do some work for me. For all his other faults, he is a master blacksmith. Well, you probably know that the old sinner's nephew, Kili is s a friend of mine."

"Your beau."

"Well, something like that. Anyway, the King of the Shit Heap asked me if I might secure a loan for him for a new anvil and some tools and a wagon and horse to take it all back to the Blue Mountains with him. As his credit in these parts is questionable. Well, Thorin was a friend of my grandfather and he fought alongside my great grand-uncle and the whole Took clan turns to him for all their metalwork. So, I was a fool and trusted him, and he left me holding the debt! I was so angry that I quite speaking to Kili, too. And then I met that other son of an orc, Coruadan, and got into another terrible mess. It's a good thing Kili's a better man than his blowhard of a Uncle is."

"It doesn't seem like that would be such a large sum to you. Miss Baggins."

"Well it's not the money, Gandlaf, it's the principle of the thing. So it's Thorin's Quest for Erebor I'm being asked to join, is it?"

"Yes. The question is, are you interested in being the Company's burglar?"

"Burglar? Is that what I'm being offered? That's a much better job. Took though I may be, goodness knows I couldn't manage 13 Dwarves!"

Gandalf tried not to laugh at that, but he did, anyway.

"Well it is turning out to be a good morning, isn't it? Tell you what. I'll think about it. Come back at dinnertime, and I'll let you know. " Bella decided.

* * *

It wasn't so much that I didn't fancy an adventure.

After all, my mother is a Took, adventure is in my blood.

I have been as far away as Bree, you know, all by meself, and I have learnt fencing and axe-throwing from my cousin, the Master of Buckland.

I have been to Bree several times, I compete in the seasonal fairs and festivals, in the sport of axe- throwing and I have won some medals, thank you.

So I am not, you know, completely a babe in the Shire.

It's only that I'm afraid of disappointing myself in finding I am not as adventurous as I thought.

But, after what had just happened to me, I was just about ready to jump at the chance Gandalf was offering me.

But when I told him I would think about it, I didn't think that my only thinking about it would require so many Dwarves.

The first arrived at dinnertime, a burly fellow nearly a foot taller than me, and I am four two, a very Tookish height, indeed, and he had a big brown beard and no hair to speak of.

He wasn't what you might call handsome, in fact he was quite ugly, but in a compelling way, and he was burly and beardy and strong.

Well, there was no harm in a little dinner, was there?

"Would you be the mistress of the house, lassie?" he asked me

"It seems strange, doesn't it, Master Dwarf? But my father passed on, prematurely. And my mother has gone to Long Cleeve to live with her relatives. So I am the mistress of Bag End, Miss Belladonna Baggins. "

"Dwalin, son of Fundin. At your service."

"Really? Well, wouldn't that be nice. After all, you are a rather large fellow. But excuse my terrible jokes. I'd better get some more for us to eat…"

The thing was, though, that very soon I had Balin, son of Fundin, at my service, and Dori, Nori, Ori, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Oin and Gloin at my service.

And Fili and Kili, too.

"You had better tell your lot to quit breaking up the place! Because I know your Uncle's not worth a penny of it!" I told them.

But I was laughing when I said it, because, even though it was made up of unruly strangers, it was quite a nice party.

I'd never seen so many big, strong, hairy men in one place at one time, and I wasn't sure why they were all there, but if I was going on an adventure with this motley lot of drunken ruffians, then I was sure to have a fine time.

I told Gandalf so, when he showed up.

And I had all this food for the wedding feast that would have just rotted, otherwise.

Everyone was making quite merry, even me.

And I always thought that my father , bless his soul, made too much of the plates, even though these Dwarves made too little of them.

"Have you gone out and bought all of this for us, my fine little lassie? Because when Thorin, our chief arrives, he can compensate you." Balin asked me.

"Oh, no. You see, I has all this food laid aside for my wedding feast. It was just on the verge of spoiling,. I' glad you lot showed up. I was going to get married. It was a terrible idea, really. Not even to a Hobbit, either. But to this Elvish chap. His name was Coruadan. He was a good-looking fellow, you know , in that pretty way Elves are. Oh, he wasn't really my sort of man, but I thought, well my sort of man gets me in trouble, I'll try someone different. I met him in Bree, and he was so sweet and pretty and so lost. You know the type. The kind you just want to shove into your pocket and hold close to your heart. Well, as it turns out, he was a bastard, who only wanted to pick my pocket. And break my heart. Because, two nights before the wedding, he got on the horse I bought him, in the suit of clothes I made for him, took the money for our honeymoon holiday and left. I haven't seen him since. Well, I got drunk for a week, and I'm not even a big drinker. And I cried and burnt the dress and it was all just awful. But I suppose it was for the best. Fancy how sorry I would have been if I did marry the rotter."

All the Dwarves, or perhaps I mean Dwarrows, listened to my story, and it put a bit of a damper on things.

"Well, don't look so sad, my friends! I was only getting married because I had just had an affair end unhappily, and it was a very bad idea, on my part."

Kili gave me a questioning look, and I shook my head, trying to tell him it wasn't him I was talking about.

Gandalf didn't notice and neither did any of the other dwarves, except Balin.

He looked at the empty chair at the head of the table, frowned and shook his head.

Meanwhile, I continued with my explanation.

"The poncy son of a bitch probably did me a favor leaving me. My own mother, and all my Tookish relations, they had refused to come to my wedding. That's what a bad idea it was. It's a good job, then, that the Elf left me. Although I do with he hadn't robbed me. Because it's not the principle of the thing, damn it all, it's the money! But, Gandalf tells me that we are all going to have an adventure. Which will take my mind off of all of it. All things considered, I would much rather have a feast before a good adventure than a bad marriage." I explained.

"If we find him along the way, lassie, we'll string him up!" Dwalin promised.

"By his feet." Balin added.

"And Bella can throw an axe at him. She's won the Axe-Throwing Competition at Bree five years in a row!" Kili informed his fellows.

"So this is your axe, then, on the wall above out heads! It's a fine axe, lassie. Go on, let's see you throw." Balin suggested.

Gandalf answered a knock on the door as I was taking aim.

But when I saw who it was, I threw the axe, anyway.

It stuck in the doorjamb, about three gnat's hair's away from Thorin Oakenshield's head.

He didn't even flinch.

I knew him as the Master Blacksmith who sometimes plied his trade in Bree, a shockingly good-looking and burly Dwarf, who was even more shocking and good-looking when dressed in fur and finery, and armed to the teeth.

Of course, when I had met him, in Bree, for some metalwork I needed done, he hadn't looked quite so, I believe majestic is the word I want, but he was still the rest.

I went to get my axe.

"You ought to be more careful with your weapons, Belladonna Baggins of Bag End."

"You ought to be more careful with yours, Thorin Oakenshield." I replied.

I was gracious about it, though, and showed Thorin to the table.

He sat at the head of it.

"I was just talking to your business manager, Mr. Balin, Master Blacksmith. He seemed to think you might want to compensate me for your stay here."

"Then let him do it. For I have work to do."

"That's not the kind of compensation I had in mind. I can have that from your nephew. And I have, too. " I told Thorin.

But he went right along ahead with his business, as if I hadn't even spoken.

"Now, Gandalf tells me you will be our burglar. And I can see that you have skill with that axe. But have you any experience in battle?"

"I'm also quite good at fencing. But, well, when I was in my tweens and younger, I got in a lot of fistfights. I used to be shorter than everyone, and then I had this growth spurt. I've taken a few beatings, but I've never started a fight. I wear my Took's plaid with pride. And a Took never gives her ground."

"I see. And have you ever burgled anything?"

"Well, I tracked Coruadan, my ill fated fiance, to Bree, and I beat the snot out of him. Right in the middle in the street. I called him a bunch of horrible filthy names, too. It was very unladylike. But it did me a world of good. I stole back the horse he stole from me, and traded it for my new pony. Just got home this morning."

"Well, if Gandalf says you'll bring us luck, you'll have to do. Now, Balin, give Miss Baggins the contract."

I read it over.

"This bit about funeral arrangements, Mr. Balin?"

"Yes?"

"Will you agree to have my remains brought back to the Shire? I may be quite Tookish, but I am also a Baggins, and all Bagginses are buried in the family vault. My spirit would never rest if my bones, or their ashes, were not laid to rest with my fathers. If someone transports my remains home, I'm sure my mother and the Took side of the family would throw a grand wake. And he'd be welcome to stay and feast."

"Miss Baggins, if the unthinkable happens I will accompany your body home, personally. And I perish, my brother, Dwalin, will come in my stead."

"Good."

"Will you sign the contract, then? Balin asked.

"I have only one more term to add. I hardly know most of you, but you all seem like excellent and fine gentleman. Solid, trustworthy, dependable fellows, but who know how to have a good time. . I tried to marry for love, or something like it. And look where that got me. So, now I'll do it the old fashioned way. At the end of this adventure, we shall all know each other better, and I shall know you all well enough to know who I'd like to make a business proposal to. Provided any of us survive, I'll want to choose one of you fine, strong , Dwarven gents to do me the honor of being my husband. You'll have to come back to Bag End with me, but It'll be a proper marriage, no funny stuff or small print. And it won't be all business, either. If you get my meaning. And we'll share and share alike. What's mine will be yours, and what's yours will be mine. I can sew, I'm a good cook, I don't get the horrors at curse words or dirty jokes, and I'm not wearing any false padding under me clothes. And ah, well, let's keep it clean and say I enjoy a man's company. I'm sure all of you gents would make a woman a fine husband, and I can assure you I'd make any of you excellent Dwarven warriors a fine wife. Do I have any volunteers?"

Gandalf choked on his pipe.

"Do any of you who are unmarried, object?" Thorin asked.

"As if we would?" Dwalin shouted.

He got a good laugh.

Kili jumped up.

"I'll marry you, Bella. I'll marry you this very night, before we leave! And I'll find that bastard Elf for you, and put an arrow through his black heart!" Kili volunteered.

"You woulda done that even even if you came and found the lass married to the Elvish bastard!" Dwalin added.

"You're right. I would have. And you'll all get the same, if you try and steal my Bella!" Kili decreed.

"She was probably tryin' to keep that under her hat, lad." Balin told him.

"But everybody, man, Dwarf and Hobbit, from here to the Blue Mountains knows…" Ori began.

"Be quiet, little brother!" Dori shushed him.

"Sit down, Kili. The point of the contract term is that Miss Baggins wishes to find the measure of us all, as men, on this quest, and then she will choose. If she's yours, she'll choose you." Thorin explained.

"But Thorin, does our burglar not already know the measure of Kili, as a man?" Dwalin joked.

"I do. That's why I'm very likely to accept his offer." I interjected.

They laughed.

These Dwarves they laughed at all my bad jokes.

That was a good sign.

"Aye, and the way she threw that axe at you with such purpose, Thorin Oakenshield, I don't doubt she 's had every bit of your measurements, too. And she's just as glad to see you again after a long absence as the rest of your women. How much did he take you for, lassie?" Bofur piped in.

Amid thunderous laughter, I made my reply.

"You hit the nail on the head, Mr. Bofur. It's a matter of money that is a bone of contention between your Chieftain, and I, and nothing else. But it is a matter that I can disregard, for now. Only the price of a secondhand anvil, a few tools, a rickety old wagon, and a broken-down old nag. As you can see from my home, I can afford to be generous, especially with your Chieftain and all of you most excellent Dwarrows, for asking me on this quest."

Well, it was meant to be an insult and Thorin took it as such.

His eyes blazed with anger.

I pretended not to notice.

"I see. So, Kili had asked you to lend his Uncle some money, for tools of his trade, and you have not yet been paid back. Well, that sounds like a small sum. We'll settle up at the end, and add it to your share of the treasure." Balin finished.

Gandalf glowered at me.

So did Thorin.

I ignored both of them.

The Dwarves accepted my terms and I thought theirs were quite fair.

So, I signed.

* * *

"Just where do you think you're going with our burglar in your arms, laddie?'

"I'm going to put Bella to bed, Uncle. She's passed out."

"That's right. She has. So you take off her boots and her jacket and waistcoat, and that's all you take. Put her in the bed, and pull up the blankets and come right back out."

"Mind your own business Thorin Oakenshield! I'm awake enough to know if I want to…ugh, me stomach…not the bedroom, Kili, take me to the bog! Hurry! I'm going to be sick!"

"Uncle…"

"It's all part of marriage, laddie. Don't let her hair fall into the sick, and one day she'll do the same for you. Hurry up, then, or you'll be the one who cleans the floor. Dori, make some of that chamomile tea. And Oin, see if you haven't got something for the stomach."

* * *

Let me give you a piece of advice.

Never drink with 13 Dwarves.

Especially not on a full stomach.

I had some of Oin's stomach medicine, and a few cups of Dori's chamomile tea, and Gandalf told Kili to sit up with me, in case I needed help in the night.

In the morning, I found that they had all left without me, except Kili, who had Oin's hangover remedy and some of Dori's chamomile tea waiting for me, and after I took a long, hot shower, had had some tea and toast and the stomach medicine, I packed my pack, got on my new pony, and, following Kili, rode on my way.

As we left the Shire, we passed my grandfather, The Old Took's, Hobbit Hole.

My mother was outside, smoking her pipe.

"Good morning, Mrs. Baggins." Kili said, politely.

"Good morning, young master Kili, nephew of Thorin. And where are you going, Bella, on your new pony?"

"On an adventure, Mama."

"A long adventure?"

"Yes."

"Have you got your great grand-uncle's mithril shirt with you?"

"Yes, Mum."

"And your woolies? And your dries athelas berries? And your heavy blanket and you warm cloak?"

"Yes, Mum."

"Good. A good adventure will be much better for you than a bad marriage. But, we will be expecting a marriage, when you come home. A good one, this time."

"You'll have one, Mrs. Baggins." Kili promised her.

"Good luck, young master Kili. You'll need it. Good-bye, Bella. Write us, if you get the chance!"

Mum hugged me, and made me wait for her to go in and get me a thick, fur-lined wool shawl with a hood that she had knitted for me, for the upcoming winter, and after I stuffed that into my pack, too, I was on my way.

* * *

Gandalf puffed his pipe, and frowned.

There was Bella Baggins, on her pony, wearing little or nothing under a Tookish kilt, and a shirt and jacket and waistcoat to boot, sneezing and rummaging in her pack for dried athelas berries to soothe her allergy, and a pocket handkerchief.

When she didn't have the latter, Kili, Thorin's nephew, rode up to her and gave her his.

"Did you really bring your woolies, Bella? I wouldn't want you to catch a cold."

"Two pairs of wool leggings. Right in my pack. Why? Would you have insisted we stop and go back for them?"

"Yes."

"You don't have have to convince me that you're the hero, on this quest, Kili. I already know that you are."

"Are you serious about marrying someone else?"

"I don't even know if I'm serious about getting married. But, just between you and me, I think the contest is fixed."

"But it's in the contract."

"I said at the end of the quest. I didn't say when."

"Well, if we do get married, Fili's the heir, so I don't know how much I'd have to share with you. But I'd share it with you."

"I don't care if you were penniless, Kili. I'm loaded. We'd have Bag End to share, and all the rest of my inheritance."

"And a lifetime of adventures?"

"I wouldn't mind that at all. But let's try to live through this one, first."

Kili leaned over and whispered something in the Hobbit's ear.

They both laughed.

* * *

Gandalf, who had been pretending not to listen, cantered up to the lead pony.

Thorin had been glaring at his younger nephew, was muttering something under his breath about cutting an Elf's bollocks off.

"Thorin, did you not spend some little time in Bree and the like, doing metalwork, to raise money for this journey, in the past few years? And Fili, did he not work with you? And Kili, you had him working for that tall one- eyed huntsman who lives at the Prancing Pony, did you not?" Gandalf casually inquired.

"I did."

"He must have met her in Bree."

"I wouldn't know. I was busy. Working."

"You couldn't have been working all the time! Thorin, Ori was right. Every Dwarf and Hobbit and quite a few Men, as well, know that Bella Baggins and your nephew Kili have been carrying on a rather merry and lighthearted affair for about the last five years or so. Naturally I assumed it was that affair which ended unhappily, and drove her to very nearly marry a very bad example of Elf-kind. But Kili doesn't seem to be the culprit. In fact, whatever, or whoever it was that broke the Hobbit's heart seems to have made him rather more serious about her."

Thorin scowled.

"Well, I never said that they were strangers, did I? I mean, it's only natural for a lad his age to find himself a girl. But all this talk of marriage, it's a load of bollocks. He's too young for a wife. And the Hobbit, by her people's reckoning, is also barely of age."

"Of course they are. But most people who marry do so when they are too young for it, and still optimistic. When you become old enough to get married and you haven't, you lose your nerve for it. Kili seems very keen to win Miss Baggins' hand. And not for her inheritance, either. Only now, I heard him promising her that as she would share her birthright with him, he would share his with her. And something about a lifetime of adventure. Then he whispered something secret in her ear. And she laughed and blushed. Well, after all, Fili is your heir. Kili is free to pursue a lifetime of adventure with whom he wishes. I wonder how they met?"

"The girl participates in all those ridiculous fairs and festivals in Bree. And some in the Hobbits' Shire. Fencing. Throwing an axe. Making a fool of herself. And my nephews are fond of those kinds of entertainments."

"Yes. That axe of hers. It seems to be one of yours. I recognize your handiwork."

"Yes, I made the girl's axe. And shod her pony. Just as I have done metalwork for a thousand customers. Are you trying to make some kind of point? What business is it of mine if my nephew has had, or is having, some kind of fling with your burglar? Let him marry her, if she wants him. The Shirefolk are good people. Especially the Tooks. "

"What about the Elf?"

"Which one?"

"The one you were muttering under your breath about emasculating, just now."

"He deserves it. What kind of a thing is that for some man a thousand years old , or more, to do to an innocent young girl? I hope Kili does find that Elf who jilted Miss Baggins, and murders the bastard! Bastard fookin' Elves! Always up to no good!"

"Still, I wonder if it was a Hobbit she had the unhappy affair with. I heard talk, at the Green Dragon. And the Prancing Pony. And Bella Took, that is, Mrs. Bungo Baggins, seems to think it was you."

"Me?"

"Yes. You. You, who fought at the side of Bullroarer Took, and were always on good terms with Gerontius Took. According to Bella, the entire Took clan considers you their blacksmith. Which is how you came to know Bella Baggins, the younger. Making her that axe. It's a very sordid story. Mrs. Baggins told me how you seduced your own nephew's girl away from him, induced her to fall in love with you, then you and she fell out over something to do with money, and some kind of terrible betrayal that Bella wouldn't tell even her own mother about. Bella senior says she tried to tell her daughter you had a reputation as being, and I quote, a heartbreaker and a whoremaster, but Bella junior wouldn't listen. Indeed, the only reason you haven't had an army of Tooks calling you to do the right thing and marry Bella Baggins, jr. is because none of them have any faith in you at all that you would quit being a heartbreaker and a whoremaster. Also, Kili paid a call on the Thain of the Shire, Isengrim Took, Bella's uncle, and the current head of the Took clan, formally apologized to him on behalf of the race of Dwarves and the Heirs of Durin, and asked for our burglar's hand in marriage. The Tooks are in agreement with his proposal, provided that Bella wants to marry him. Regardless, they have accepted his apology, on behalf of your race and your family for your behavior. But, then again, it could all just be idle Hobbit gossip."

"That's what it is, Gandalf. Why, I hardly know the girl!"

"Certainly you don't, Thorin. I never believed any of that for a second."

* * *

There was a lot of trouble, in the first month of our expedition, having to do with me, and it wasn't over me making trouble because I was a girl.

It was all Thorin's doing, and that's' the truth.

The trouble began with all the hemming and hawing, around the campfire as to where it would be proper for the lady to sleep.

It was first decided I should sleep a little bit away from the Company, but the nights were still chilly and I would wake up in the middle of the night, freezing cold, and sleepily drag my pallet over to the Dwarves around the fire, and trying not to step on anyone, find Fili and Kili and squeeze in next to Kili, as they weren't strangers to me.

Eventually, I quit exiling myself to the cold hinterlands and slept in the same general area as Fili, Kili and King Thorin the Megalomaniacal.

You would have thought that would be enough for him, but it wasn't.

I suspected that Thorin would want a word in my ear, but it really wasn't fair of him to sneak up on me when I was behind a tree, watering the dandelions.

I got my woolen leggings, which I wear on the chillier days, pulled up, and came from around the tree and there he was.

"Bella, you and I must have words. Walk with me." Thorin announced.

Haughtily and officiously.

As if I had been waiting all that month just to tag along behind him.

Well, I was willing to do that much.

Walk with him, and talk to him, that is.

"It's been good of you to say nothing. About us."

"That is because there is nothing to say." I replied.

Frostily.

That really bothered Thorin.

Good.

"Why an Elf?"

"Why not? He was unlike you in every way and that's what I was looking for, at the time. Well, almost every way. He robbed me, betrayed me, and left me flat to do what I liked about it, just like you did."

All I got out of that comment was an imperious look.

"Well you already seem to have picked out your future husband. My nephew. Kili. I notice you get yourself snuggled right up tight with him, every night. Think you'll just pick up where you left off with him, do you?"

"Who says I left off?"

"I know you did."

"Not for long. And it wasn't on your account! Well, I like Kili. I always have. He's handsome and young, and we have much in common, and we always have a good time, together. I enjoy his company. And he's proven himself to be a good man. He's forgiven me, for all of the mad things I did after you stuck a Morgul blade through my heart, and stood beside me. You may think he's just a boy, but Kili's quite a man. Solid. Dependable. Honorable. Trustworthy. Unlike you."

Thorin grabbed me by the shoulders.

He did a very good job of looking majestic and kingly, but it wasn't going to work on me.

"Do you think I wanted to have words with you so that you can insult me, Halfling?" he thundered.

Halfling?

Oh, that did it.

I shook his hands off of me.

"No. But I'm going to insult you all the same, Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror! You think you're the king, do you? You're the King, alright, king of the trash pile! King of the shit heap! I know you, a lot better than I would like to, and under your furs and your majesty and your haughty expression, you're a crude, profane, hard-hearted mercenary bastard! A greedy, power mad, vengeful son of an orc! A two-bit, high-hat, officious, petty tyrant of a dirty old man! You're a liar and a whoremaster and a dirty, no-good all around bad-tempered shitheel! And furthermore, you're a conceited prick, a money-grubbing miser, a bad man, and a worse friend! And if you think that I have taken up this quest so that I can make nice with you, you miserable son of an orc, if you think I've any intention of crawling back to you, then this is your notice that if you had the last cock in Middle Earth I would jump in the ocean and swim to the Undying Lands, or die trying!"

Well, I might as well have hit Thorin over the head with a rock, for the look he had on his face.

"Have we had enough words? Or would you like some more? Because there's plenty where those came from!" I demanded.

He recovered quickly, though.

"Almost. Bluster as much as you want, Belladonna Baggins. But when I make a woman mine, she stays that way. When I want you, I'll come and get you. And you'll run back to me."

He grabbed me, again, and crushed me close against his broad chest.

My body began to get some lewd ideas, but my mind told it to stop right there.

"If you try to kiss me, Thorin Oakenshield, I will spit in your face!"

"Then spit!"

Well, I did, but it didn't deter him.

The worst part if it was, Thorin hadn't gotten to be any less of a man, since the last time he had kissed me, and by the time we has parted, I wanted to pull my woolies right back down, again.

Despite his horrible betrayal.

He knew it, too, and he got this little smirk on his face, this little smirk that I wanted to punch.

But I wouldn't give Thorin the satisfaction of knowing that he had upset me so much.

"Are you finished, now? Can I leave?"

"Your legs are trembling."

"I've got a cramp, from riding all day."

I tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but Thorin wouldn't let me go.

That was when it occurred to me that he meant to have more than words in my ear.

"I know where you've got a cramp, girl!"

He held me fast with one arm, unfastened his fur-lined cape and let it fall to the ground.

"Thorin..."

"You mean to cuckold me with my own nephew? And leave me out in the cold? Not while I fookin' well live and breathe! Marry the boy if you want, but you're mine, Bella Baggins! The time for words is finished"

He meant to wrestle me to the ground, pull off my woolies, unbutton my shirt and waistcoat, and have his wicked way with me on his furs.

Not that I didn't want him to, in one way, but, in another, I would rather have been had by an orc.

"Thorin, stop! Get your hands off me, you're hurting me! Have you gone mad?" I insisted.

"Mad for you, Bella!"

"Well if you want to get back in my good graces, this isn't the best way to start!"

I gave him a good shove, and broke away.

"I'll scream!"

I took a step back, Thorin lunged forward and I grabbed the dagger from my belt and stuck it right under his nose.

"I said no, didn't I?"

You know, the look that Thorin got on his face, like I had already stabbed him, and right through the heart, it made me feel so awful that I forgot how angry I was with him.

"Bella, I made you that dagger! And the ring on your finger, and the bracelet on your sleeve. You have not removed them, have you? Do you hate me so much, have I wronged you so deeply, woman, that you would cut me with my own blade, rather than lie with me? And an Elf? You would have married an Elf?"

I put my dagger away.

"He was everything you aren't. That was good enough for me. I probably would have ended up having it annulled in a week. I may have given a man my favors, well, two, actually, but I never gave them my heart. I trusted you with it, and you shattered it like a glass goblet. I can't let you do it a second time. That would kill me."

"So, I have lost your trust, have I? Well. it serves me right. I squandered it. On an anvil, a broken down wagon, an old nag, and a hammer and tongs. The thing, is, Bella, I am something of a bastard. I'm a mean, tough, hard-hearted old warrior, and I can neither change, nor to I want to."

"I don't mind that. I rather like your being, you know, something of a bastard. That's not what made the break between us!"

"If I was to earn back your trust, Bella, would your love come with it?"

"My love never went anywhere, did it?"

"Is that supposed to be a goddammed answer?"

"It's the goddamned answer you're getting! I'm giving you a chance, aren't I? Its more than you deserve."

Thorin's eyes flashed with rage.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me up against a tree.

"So,there's nothing left between us, is there? I'll show you otherwise, my girl!"

He knelt down in front of me, and it was kilt up, and woolies down.

"You're right, I'm a goddamned dirty old man, girl. I'm not about to let you forget it!"

Maybe I should have stopped him, but what woman in her right mind would stop a man from doing a thing that you can't even get half of them to do?

And when Thorin was done, or rather, when I was, he got up, wiped his face on his sleeve, and kissed me again.

And I spit in his face for the second time.

I regretted having done it, as soon as I did.

"I still loath and despise you, Thorin Oakenshield!"

And I regretted saying that, too.

"Do you think I care if you do, or not? If lust is all that's left between us, by Durin's big brass balls, and mine, I'll take it!" he said.

And then he left me to think things over.

I stood there, by the tree, until my legs started to work, again, and then I used some water from my canteen to wash up.

I had been gone a long time, and Kili came looking for me.

"Are you…alright, Bella? Has my Uncle…did he…no, he wouldn't do a thing like that. Would he?"

"He made his point is all, Kili. And it was a stupid point. I was comin' back to camp, soon, anyway."

* * *

The three of them, Fili, Kili and Thorin, slept in a sort of a circle with all their things in the middle, and I usually slept beside Kili, on the inside of the circle.

I sleep back to back with Kili and Thorin usually faces the other way, but we spent a few hours that night, facing each other from only a bit of ground away, with our eyes shut, pretending to be asleep.

That night, I didn't sleep, and Thorin didn't either.

Finally, we both opened our eyes.

"Don't look at me like that, Thorin. If I meant you to get off me, I could have kicked your teeth in. You made your point, for what it was worth. It doesn't mean a damn thing, though. Either way."

"It wasn't the first time you spit in me face that troubles me. It was the second."

"That was to make a point."

"What point?"

"The same one you wanted to make."

We fell silent, for awhile.

"Do you truly loathe and despise me, Bella?"

"I wish I did. I've tried to. But I don't. And I can't. What I can do is keep what I know to be true firmly in mind. I can't trust you, Thorin. If I can't trust you, that's the end of it."

"Then it is a matter of my earning back your trust."

"Good luck!" I snorted, derisively.

I pretended that I was asleep, a little bit later, when Thorin grabbed hold of the side of my pallet and pulled me over to him, and I continued to pretend to be asleep when he gathered me inside his arms and his furs.

I think he knew that I was pretending, but neither of us let on.

* * *

We had a bit of trouble a few nights later, when Thorin caught Fili opening my pack in the middle of the night to get some of the travelling food I had packed.

Well, sometimes you do get hungry in the middle of the night, don't you?

I had a whole sack of the stuff in there, for as we Hobbits say, even though you walk on your feet, you travel on your stomach.

I didn't care if he had a piece of venison jerky without waking me, and I wasn't carrying anything secret with me, but the way Thorin took on you would have thought Fili was stealing my spare short stays or sniffing my woolies or reading my diary, and he managed to wake everybody.

Gandalf got angry, though, so I didn't have to.

"Erm, would anyone else like a piece of mutton jerky?" I asked.

Just trying to be polite.

No takers.

Everyone settled back in.

"You're a very patient lass, Bella Baggins." Balin commented to me, the next morning.

"Well, I don't want to make trouble for myself, do I? I mean, Thorin might as well be Kili's father, Fili's, too, as their Uncle. I don't want to make family problems. I'm only sleeping, after all."

"I'll bet that's upsetting." He joked.

"It's still better than being married to an Elf." I replied.

And then, of course there was the controversy about the braiding.

Dwarf men do not braid their own hair or beards, unless necessity provides that they must.

If they are unmarried their mothers, or if they have them, sister's braid their hair, and if they have a wife or a sweetheart, she braids their hair, and if they have none of the above, then they get the wife or mother or sister or daughter of a close friend or relative to do it.

Dwarf men also do not let other men braid their hair.

Only their fathers, when they are small boys, if their mothers are not available.

Unless, that is, other men are their, shall we say, cup of tea.

Something they have to keep under their hoods, because such things are very much frowned up in by Dwarfkind in general.

At home, in the Blue Mountains, Dis always braided Fili's hair for him, so when he was abroad in the world with his uncle and his brother, being a good-looking fellow, he always managed to find some woman to braid his hair for him.

The barmaids at the Prancing Pony used to fight over who got to braid Fili's hair.

I'm not sure what else they did with him, but I do know about that.

And, in a pinch, considering I was his brother's sweetheart, I was practically kin, so I would braid Fili's hair for him.

In the same spirit his mother would have.

That said, I had many occasions to braid Thorin's hair for him, and not in the spirit his sister would have, back home.

It was a very intimate thing between us, you know, and I would usually sit in his lap, sometimes even astride his lap, and he'd have his arms around me, and he'd usually have just washed his hair and be in some kind of a state of undress, so it was very much that kind of thing.

Of course, in that I was present on the Quest, Thorin expected that I would braid his hair.

Well, considering we weren't exactly on the friendliest of terms, I wasn't sitting in his lap, or anything, but it was still almost as intimate and as physical a thing as what had transpired up against that tree.

I wouldn't even do it in front of the rest of the Company, even if we just went and sat behind a large rock, away from everybody else.

Of course there was none of that involved with me braiding Fili's hair for him.

We had made camp, and Dori was making dinner, and everyone was sitting in groups, talking, and there I was, sitting with Kili and Fili., and we were talking about nothing in particular and I was doing Fili's braids up for him.

Thorin had been away from the fire, having one of his walk and talks with Gandalf, and when he came back, and saw me braiding Fili's hair, he went berserk.

The stream of profanity coming out of him didn't even make any sense, and he hit Fili so hard that he knocked him for a loop, literally.

It took Dwalin and Balin to hold him back from doing his poor nephew a further mischief.

If it had been Kili, he would have wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and laughed it off, but Fili's good nature didn't go quite so far.

He got to his feet and stood up for himself.

"Why the fook did you hit me for, Uncle? Bella was only braiding my hair the way my mother would! I wouldn't steal my brother's sweetheart from right under his nose, would I? I'm not that much of a bastard! Unlike you!' Fili yelled.

That only made Thorin madder, and Gandalf had to step in and help hold him back.

"Don't make him angrier, Fili! Uncle didn't steal Bella from me. After all, our mother was married to two brothers. Your father, and my father."

"Yes! And they murdered each other over it! My father killed your father! And then himself! You were just a baby, but I remember! I was only a little boy but I remember! I saw it! You'd better not start wearing braids, or you'll end up dead, too!" Fili shouted.

A dead hush came over the Company.

And Thorin calmed down.

As for me, I was completely horrified.

Kili had told me that his mother was married to two brothers, Princes of the Iron Hills, and that one was his father and one was Fili's, and that they had both died when he was an infant and Fili was a little boy, and then his mother took them back to the Blue Mountains, where their Uncle and their mother raised them.

But I had no idea that the deaths of Dis' husbands had been due to murder and suicide.

"Let me go." Thorin ordered his cousins, and he did it in such a commanding way that even Gandalf listened.

"Fili, those fools, they were no father to you or your brother. No husbands to your mother. Vargbrand your father was a mean, stupid animal, who beat your mother, and took all his pleasure in life from the pain of others. And your father, Kili, Lothinwaen, he was a good man, but he was weak and foolish and could not stand up to his brother. Not for his nephew, his son, or his wife not even for his own life. All they contributed to your lives was the thimbleful of spunk that made you. I'm your father. And I would die before I saw you or your brother harmed. I am sorry I struck you, Fili, my lad. It's not your fault,. Or Bella's. Or your brother's. The fault is mine. And my anger is misdirected to any of you, for it is myself I am furious with."

Thorin spread his arms wide and hugged all three of us.

"Never forget that I love you! My sons, my woman! No matter how much of a bastard I am. I love you more than I love life. And I would give my life for yours. I would never hurt you."

His voice choked on the emotion in it, and I heard Kili sniffle and Fili sob.

My eyes got a little moist, but I wouldn't let myself cry.

Then, just as abruptly as he had hugged us all together, he let us go, and called to Dori to ask him what was in the pot as he made his way to the fire.

Fili and Kili and I sat down, and I finished Fili's braids.

None of us said anything to each other, because we really didn't know what to say.

In fact, none of the Company had anything to say about it.

Finally when we were sitting there and eating, Fili and Kili and Thorin and I, I said something.

"Well, I guess there's no way around you calling me your woman, Thorin, but just as I intend to marry Kili, I don't intend to marry you."

"If I say you will, you'll marry me, girl! But I'm too old to marry. And being a heartbreaker and a whoremaster, I'm not suited to be a husband. Either way, it makes no difference in the way things are."

"And how are they, Thorin? Tell me how they are?"

Thorin was about to say something in reply, and Kili rolled his eyes, but Fili put his two cents in.

"By the hairs of Mahal's head. I'm tired of hearing you both fight! Kili, you have to be sick of it!"

"I am. But I can't work out the bad blood between them."

"They can't either! Day and night, every minute they're in camp and not asleep, they're at each other's throats! Now it's got to where I'm going to get knocked around for it? Can't you two bury the axe, and not in each other's foreheads? Never mind! I'm going to go and sit with Balin and Dwalin, until these two have gone to sleep. I can't stand to listen to it, anymore!"

Fili got his bowl and left.

"I don't know what he's so touchy about. It's not even any of his business. I don't care how the two of you fight. I'd be a fool to take sides and anyway, it's got fook-all to do with me. As long as I'm in both your good books, I'll be a happy Dwarf." Kili commented.

I started to laugh, immediately.

It took Thorin a few moments longer.

"You're growing up to be as wise man, laddie."

* * *

We were all asleep by the time Fili returned to his usual place at the fire.

He woke me up.

"Bella?"

"I'm sleeping. You should be sleeping."

"My braids have come undone." he whispered to me.

I opened my eyes.

"How?"

"Maybe you didn't do them up right, in all the confusion."

I sat up.

Fili looked over at Dwalin, who was on watch.

He did not appear to have his keen eyes on us, but he probably did, nonetheless.

"We shouldn't do it here, in camp. I wouldn't want Uncle to have another fit of jealousy."

I got up, and put my jacket on.

"Alright."


	2. WaterSide Supper, Riparian Entertaiments

**Chapter Two: A Water-Side Supper With Riparian Entertainments**

_(Author's Note: Thanks for the great response on this story! Please review and let me know what you think. And, as always, keep reading!)_

Thorin sat down beside his trusted friend and lieutenant, his cousin, Dwalin, to eat his lunch.

He very rarely allowed the Company to stop for lunch, in fact, he had only done so, in order to speak to Dwalin.

And to see just how bold his nephew was.

Still, everyone was glad have food and rest, so they were making the most of it.

Especially Bella Baggins, going back for seconds.

Thorin watched her make her way back to Fili and Kili, and sit between them.

"Looking into my circle, Dwalin, what do your keen eyes see that mine do not."

Dwalin laughed.

"Fili has a bruise on his face that tells me you see very well, Thorin. But, I see many things. Alone, they mean little. But together? They mean much. Look now, at how the Hobbit sits between Kili and Fili. Not beside Kili, with Fili on his other side. Between them. That is how she sleeps, most of the time. Between them. On her back, and they they both sleep on their sides, facing away from her, towards the dangers that may lurk in the night. And while she slept, Fili felt free to reach into her pack, when he was hungry. Where she keeps her stays, and her leggings and whatever it is that the women of the Shire carry for…necessity. A man does not root through a strange woman's personal things, and a woman does not react with indifference to it, when he does. Besides, Fili knew just where to look for the food, as well. That, and have you ever known a man's braids to need doing, so often?"

"I have not seen so much as you have, but I'm not blind. So, you agree with me, then, that it's not Fili's braids that need doing?"

"I think we can be sure of that. But there is more in this than meets the eye. When I look into your circle, Thorin, I see one nephew who will not have the girl you both lay claim to, right under your nose. But, I see another who intends that at the end of this quest, to have himself and his brother standing at the altar. And you can lie down in the bed, but it will be his bed, and his wife, and you'll be the one creeping up the hidden stairs. Not him. Or Kili."

"Who is content to let his brother do their dirty work, while he can appear to be the good son, to me. Meanwhile, as soon as they heard of this Coruadan, and heard Gandalf and I speaking, they likely hatched this plan! It was, Kili, you're the romantic one, you go and win Bella's heart back for us, but don't forget to show her what she'll have from a Dwarf that she'd never get out of that Elf who wants to steal her from us. Then, when we're on the road, you can be the good little boy who would never compete with his own uncle, and I'll be the villain who says, come on, Bella, we'll show the old bastard, and roll her over in the clover, every chance I get. She can forgive Uncle Thorin after she's married to us! The scheming little bastards!"

But Thorin thought it was a fine scheme, and he laughed with pride in the boys for having thought of it, in spite of himself.

Dwalin laughed, too.

"Why, the very fookin' nerve of it, Thorin, those boys of yours tryin' to steal back the woman you stole from them!" he replied.

Thorin hadn't thought of that, and he laughed, too.

"There he goes, again, telling Bella his braids need doing.I knew he would, he's a bold son of an orc! And it's the middle of the fookin' day! What about me, then? I wouldn't mind having my braids done, after lunch, meself!" Thorin joked.

He laughed, and Dwalin laughed with him.

"Nor would I. I've a tattoo I'd like to show your girl. If push comes to shove, you and I, we could make her forget those boys of yours."

"That would be a dirty trick. But not one I'm above."

The two of them laughed, again.

The very idea that two boys, Thorin's nephews, or not, could either rival or out think him was ridicudlous.

* * *

The funny thing about Fili's braids is that they need a lot of doing.

He was in the habit of tying back his hair when he was riding, so it would stay out of his face, and that would usually result in his braids coming undone.

Somehow.

For instance, we had stopped travelling, briefly, for lunch, a privilege that slave-driving Thorin rarely let us have, and and I had barely finished before Fili was dragging me from his uncle's sight, as his braids needed doing.

Of course, I'm sure you realise that it wasn't Fili's braids that needed doing.

Even as Kili was overly discreet, Fili seemed convinced that he was dragon fodder, and he was Hell-bent to get his leg over as much as he could, before the end came.

Of the two brothers, Kili was my ardent, impetous, romantic lover, and Fili was my rough and ready very good friend.

My involvement with the Heirs of Durin began 5 or 6 Springs before, at a fair in Bree, where my taste for tall, burly, beardy blonds, and Fili's partiality for curvy, busty, dark-haired tough girls with scant beards intersected, and it has been lust and camaraderie that has been between us all along.

The Baggins in me told me to be more careful, on this trip, but every time Fili gave me that lewd look and told me about his braids, my Tookish side threw caution to the wind.

Now, Fili, he was the master of what the lads at the Green Dragon called the knee-trembler.

Although he was a fine fellow for the marathon, he was just as good at the sprint; give him ten minutes with his boots on and he'd show you a better time than most men could if they had all night.

But, five minutes at lunchtime?

That was too much.

"We are going to get caught! You and your braids!"

Or so I said, as he dragged me by the hand, through the brush.

Looking for a good, strong tree.

"What if we do get caught? Uncle will send Dwalin after us, because he wouldn't have knocked me on me arse if he hadn't figured out that no one's braids come undone so often, and all Dwalin will say is that we had better hurry it up, because we've a long way to go before we camp."

That was all the time Fili needed to unbutton my shirt and my jacket, and to strip himself to the waist, weapons and all.

Half his work was done, at that, because it put me in mind of the last time, so I was undoing the laces on his breeches, even as he pressed by shoulders against the tree, and came in close for a smirk and a kiss, sliding his hand up under my kilt.

And me with no woolies on!

I certainly had been having quite an adventure!

"You don't care if we get caught, Bella." Fili whispered in my ear.

Fili lifted me up, under my arse and I hopped into his arms, and wound my legs around him.

"You don't care about the dragon, or the treasure, or if any of the three of us love you, or if you love us. This is what you care about. It's all you care about. That's why you're my girl."

He laughed, and slowly drew my earlobe from between first his teeth, then his lips.

"Ask me for it, Bella."

Oh no.

A Took does not play that game.

I reached between us and got my hand around, well, barely, the apprentice blacksmith's hammer, and I got a good moan out of him when I put it in, for him.

"You know me, Fili. I don't ask."

Well that got him going, and he got me going, and we went hard at it.

So hard that the branches on the tree shook, and we were showed in spring leaves.

It didn't take either of us very long to rush to the finish, and it was a race we both won.

But, one thing Fili hadn't counted on was the time it would take us both to catch our breath, and dress.

I was still leaning against the tree and Fili was still leaning against me, he hadn't even got his cock out of me, when we heard Dwalin crashing through the brush.

That began a frantic scramble, on unsteady legs, for both of us.

But Dwalin stopped short of finding us, to save us the embarrassment.

"Have you got your braids done, Fili lad?" he asked.

With some little degree of mirth in his voice.

"Yes." Was all Fili replied.

"Good. Because you're holding up progress."

I had to hold up progress a little longer, cleaning up my kilt, for in the scramble for our clothes, Fili had made a mess of it.

And I really did have to do one of his braids up him, again.

Thorin came crashing through the brush, angrily, as I was braiding Kili's hair.

The game was up

"By Thor, boy, we haven't all dragged ourselves out onto the Great East Road, and taken Bella Baggins from where she was safe at home so's you could get your end off whenever the fancy strikes you! Now, it's morning, noon and night you're dragging the girl into the brush! Durin's beard, boy, what sort of courtship do you call that? She knows you're good for it, already, probably has for years! At least your brother makes an effort to be a gentleman! Now look at you, you're all worn in! And Bella doesn't even look tired! D'you know why she fooks you so often? Because it takes three or four times for her to get anything out of it! A man dinna make love to the girl he's going to marry up against a tree with his boots on, like she were some whore he paid for in ha 'pennies. Try an' remember that!"

Thorin reached for my hand, and when he got me close enough, he picked me up.

"You might cut your bare feet on on this forest floor, Bella. Your legs are already scratched up, from the brambles. Well, boy? Move your arse! Sharpish!"

Fili looked angry, but he said nothing about the way Thorin had rebuked him.

After we got underway, I expected a rebuke from Thorin, too.

But when he called me to the front of the column, it wasn't a rebuke I got.

"They are in it together, Bella. Trying to trick you into marrying them, and not me. Playin' both ends against the middle. Kili takes you for walks and says pretty things to you, and Fili takes you against rocks and says dirty things to you. There's more to being a woman married to two men than gettin' yourself screwed, morning, noon and night. Keep your wits about you, girl. Think about what it would be like, to be responsible for lookin' after both of 'em. Then you'd find yourself screwed, good and proper."

That was very good advice.

And after we lost the ponies, I had more reason to consider it.

* * *

It was only a night or three after the Battle of the Braids that Dwalin had me take two bowls of food to Fili and Kili while they watched the ponies.

They were both staring at our ponies as if something very strange was going on.

"Bella, there are 14 of us, and 14 ponies, are there not?" Fili asked me.

"Yes. Why?"

"Because now there are only nine." Kili replied.

"How could there be only nine when you're watching them."

"We're watching them disappear. Why don't you go and see what's happening?" Fili suggested

"Me? Why?"

"You're smaller than we are. And you can move quicker and quieter than the wind." Kili added

Fili took the bowls from me.

"You are the burglar, Bella. This is your line. Did you think it was going to be all braiding and bickering?" he joked.

"What if something happens?"

"Hoot like a screech owl. Kili and I will come to your rescue. Immediately."

"Well, I don't know. I want to go on record as saying this seems like a terrible idea. But I am the burglar. If someone is stealing our ponies, it's my job to steal them back."

I should have listened to my instincts and not the desire I had to prove I was agood burglar,

Can you guess how my investigations turned out?

I'll give you a hint.

Badly.

* * *

There is no great difficulty in being a Took.

Or in being a Baggins.

The difficulty is in being both.

And while the Baggins bit of me may have congratulated herself for standing on her principles, with the mess we were now in, my Tookishness cursed me for not having sat in Thorin's lap, instead.

And Kili's, too.

Of course, in hindsight, sometimes, you do question some of your choices.

And, with all of the company packed into sacks by trolls, and half of them roasting on a spit, it did make me glad that I had gone with Fili to do up his braids, but I did wish that Kili and I weren't so guilty about his Uncle being around, or about how I had been so standoffish with Thorin, a few nights before.

Oh well.

Hindsight is 20-20.

And nothing is impossible, Gandalf says.

I thought I saw him, on top of the hill.

But, maybe it was the sun I saw.

I wracked my brains, thinking of something I could say to distract the trolls long enough for the sun to come up.

Then, it came to me.

The trolls had stripped my companions of their clothes before putting them into sacks, but when they went to strip me, Balin had protested that I was a woman, and they should have some decency, and roast me with my clothes on.

"A lady?" the troll called Bert exclaimed.

"We can't eat a lady. Raw, or cooked. It wouldn't be right." Tom added.

"I suppose you're right." Bill agreed.

And he had put me down.

That gave me a brilliant idea.

I walked over to the troll who seemed to be in charge.

"Excuse me, Mr. Bill, sir?"

"What is it, now? We're trying to discuss how to cook your friends."

"Well, it's just that, that one you've got over there? On the pile, and not on the spit. The younger one?"

"The beardless one?"

"Well he has go the beginnings of a beard. But yes, that's him. He's asked me to marry him. We've only just got back together. You see, I ah, well I just had a fella rob me blind and leave me at the altar. It would be just awful if I lost the fella I wanted to marry, to begin with, to being a troll's dinner. That and, you know, him and I being so close and all, I don't think I could bear to see you rip his legs off. Especially the one in the middle. Do you think you could let him go free?"

"Go on, Bill. Poor little mite was left at the altar. What's one less?" Tom urged.

"Well, he's not a meaty as the rest of them, anyway. Let the young one go, Bert." Bill decided.

They cut Kili out of the sack.

He caught on quickly.

"Erm, sirs? I thank you so much for my life. But we're Dwarves . And with Dwarves, you know, sometimes two brothers marry the same girl. And you've got him on the spit. My brother. My only brother. He's the blond fellow."

"The blue-eyed one?" Bill asked

"We can't eat the other groom, can we, Bill?" Tom wheedled.

"Wouldn't be proper. Now, before I get any further along, here, are any of these other little fellas involved in your wedding?" Bill asked

"I'm the boys' uncle! They've got no father and I raised them from the time that one was a little boy and the other was an infant." Thorin announced.

"That and my future wife, she's my Uncle's girl, as well. You know. Keeping it in the family." Kili explained.

"You're a very patient girl, aren't you, Miss?" Bert observed.

By the time Gandalf and dawn came, I had Fili, Kili, Thorin and Dwalin free.

But, after we got everyone out of their sacks, Thorin blamed it all on me.

And his nephews.

"I said this was no job for a woman! And a Hobbit at that! If you hadn't been poking around those trolls, none of this would have happened! Of course, if you boys had done your job, and minded the ponies, then the girl wouldn't have had to come to your rescue! Did one of you have the brilliant idea to send the little Hobbit girl into the mouth or peril, while you had your dinner, or did the both of you strategic geniuses fookin' well think that up, together? And you think you're ready for marriage? And you too, Bella? I turn my back on the three of you for one bloody moment and you almost get us all eaten alive! By the short and curly hair's of Durin's second beard, why did I bring fookin' women an' children on this quest?" He insisted.

"I didn't hear any of the rest of you, including you, Thorin, coming up with any ideas of how to distract the trolls until sunrise." Gandalf protested.

"I should not have had to! You're another one, Gandalf? What good is having a wizard on your quest when he's only around when it's time to smoke and eat, but if something goes wrong, he can't be found? Never mind. Well, considering we all spent the night fighting trolls, and then being stripped naked and either turned on a spit or stuffed into sacks, we'll have to get some sleep, today, before we press on." Thorin decided.

"It'll be safe and quiet and dark in that cave." Dwalin suggested.

But it wasn't just safe and dark and quiet, it was also the site of a great troll horde.

Some of what they had was worthless, but they also had a few heaps of treasure, and a cache of weapons.

Gandalf and Thorin both helped themselves to a new blade, as Bifur and Bofur packed some treasure into sacks and chests, and buried it.

Making a long-term investment, they said.

As for me, I filled my purse with gold coins, and the reserve purse in my pack.

Just in case we needed a little extra money.

But even as Thorin was insisting, after he had marveled at the quality of the blade he had found, that he didn't want it because it was Elvish, I saw, under some cobwebs and bones, the hilt of a short sword.

Short for an Elf, but it would be just about perfect for me.

I picked it up, and after getting rid of the rotted leather belt, I pulled the sword out if it's scabbard.

"Thorin! _Zagar-zu ai-menu rumun!"_

That is Khuzdul for 'Up your arse with my sword."

As soon as I said it, Thorin drew his blade, to parry my thrust, and the two blades actually sparked together.

The spark was blue.

"Well picked, Bella. Your blade is also of Elf make." Gandalf encouraged me.

"Don't encourage the girl! And who taught you rude oaths in Khuzdul?" Thorin demanded.

"Fili."

Actually, I had picked up quite a bit of Khuzdul, in the time I knew Thorin.

Most of it was fairly filthy too, as I had picked it up from listening to him curse, or when he was panting over me.

And he spent a lot of time doing both, I can tell you.

"Your burglar is quick with a sword, Gandalf. I hope she is as quick in battle as she is at fookin' about." Thorin replied.

He began busily supervising the separating of the wheat from the chaff, as far as the troll horde, and I affixed the scabbard of the short sword to the belt my axe hung from.

"Oh no! The Hobbit has a sword! Let's see if you can fence with a mattock !" Bofur cried.

He was pretty good with that rock hammer of his, and we made Bifur laugh.

He spoke to me, in Khuzdul, and, albeit haltingly, I replied in kind.

He said that I looked natural with sword in my hand, and I told him that all Tooks are born armed.

"You're a fair hand with our language." Balin commented.

"I picked it up along the way."

I kept poking through the troll horde, and I found a very good bow.

I decided I'd keep it, for Kili.

I kept digging, until I found this great, whopping, studded warhammer.

That was for Fili.

Can't get something for one brother and not for the other.

Well, actually, I could have found Fili the hammer and not taken the bow for Kili, and he wouldn't have said a thing, but although Kili looks more like his uncle than Fili does, Fili is a little more like him in his personality.

So, there I was, with sword and hammer and axe and bow, just bristling with weapons.

"You are beginning to look like a Dwarf yourself, Bella. Heavily laden with weapons." Gandalf chuckled.

"Like a Took, Gandalf." I corrected him.

* * *

Dori discovered that if we went a little further into the cave it was neither dirty nor smelly, and all of us laid ourselves down to rest.

Quarters in the cave were more cramped than outside, so I wouldn't be able to go to sleep without being close by to someone.

And Gandalf had disappeared again, saying he had to speak to Radagast the Brown, his colleague, while we slept.

I found myself a little corner, unrolled my pallet and blanket, took off my woolies, and my jacket and waistcoat, and lay down to sleep, with my head resting on my backpack, facing the wall.

I drowsed as I listened to my companions selling in, and I was almost asleep when I felt someone's back up against mine.

I knew it wasn't Thorin, I could tell.

So, I guessed.

"Kili?"

"Was it you, who found me that fine bow in the troll horde?" he whispered.

"I hoped it was a good bow." I whispered back.

"It will be, once I get it cleaned up. Have you really chosen me, or did you just say that to the trolls?"

"Well, despite you promising my mother you'd be the provider of the grandchildren she eagerly awaits, I don't know, yet, Kili. After all, there's always Dwalin. He's a mean, fierce old bear, to be sure! But you're at the head of the pack."

"Behind my Uncle. And my brother."

"Well I can't very well marry one of you without marrying the other, could I? Him and his braids! You haven't thought of that, with all your talk of marriage, have you?"

"You're put it in the contract, Bella."

"I know. I wasn't thinking of Fili. Probably because he would rather shave his head and his chin bald than even think about a wedding. And I could never marry your Uncle could I? You can't pollute Durin's line with Hobbit blood."

"You're not just a Hobbit, Bella. You're a Took. Would you marry him? My Uncle. If you could."

"No. I wouldn't. Not if he was the last man on Earth."

"Why are you so angry at him?"

"Why are we whispering?"

"Because me Uncle has eyes and ears in the back of his head! I'll still marry you. Even if you quit being angry with him. I mean, after all, he is me Uncle. I can look the other way, you know, a bit, for me own Uncle. Listen, I know it's not much of a courtship, but tonight, when we're not in this cave, maybe you and I, we could take a little walk, again."

Kili and I had been taking a lot of little walks, at night, after everyone else was asleep.

The odd thing about it was that if Thorin knew, I'm sure he would have assumed that the moment we were out of sight and earshod, that Kili and I were going after it, hammer and tongs, every which way that we could think of.

Actually, we spent most of our time talking about him.

What he expected of us, in contrast to what we might want, which we knew were only pipedreams, as long as Thorin Oakenshield lived and breathed.

"I'd think you ought to be getting tired of walking with me. You're a patient man, Kili, nephew of Thorin."

"You're the only one who thinks so."

"That you're patient, or that you're a man?"

"Both. And it's not patience. It's guilt. You know I love you, Bella. It's only that, I know my Uncle does, too. I just can't…well I can't drag you off into the woods , right under his nose. Not as long as you and he are arguing. I don't know why I bother, though, because Uncle Thorin thinks I'm an idiot boy, and that I don't bother to look before I leap. Anyway, Balin's going to make a diversion for us, tonight. Get Uncle Thorin telling war stories."

"That'll work. That's Thorin's favorite subject. How majestic and magnificent he is. Do we need a diversion?"

"Yes. I have something very important I have to tell you."

I tried not to look disappointed.

We both fell quiet for awhile.

"I wish that fookin' troll hadn't called me the beardless one! It's embarrassing. Fili's had his beard since he was twenty. My mother says Uncle's beard started growing when he was still in his teens. Ori's even younger than I am, and he has a beard! I'm a grown man! Well, very 's me fookin' beard? All I've got is stubble!" Kili hissed.

"I saw it, today, when the troll let you out of that sack. I think you have quite a beard. The rest of you isn't so bad, neither. Honestly, after seeing the rest of this lot in the altogether? Your chances are gettin' better every day." I replied

Kili and I laughed, as quietly as we could.

"I wish I could un-see Bombur without his kit on." Kili whispered back.

"Me too. And what about Dwalin? Wouldn't it hurt, gettin' that bit of you tattooed?"

"He's the toughest Dwarf in all Middle Earth. When I was younger, before he went bald, he had his whole head shaved, except for this bit in the middle, that stuck straight up in the air. Like the brush on an ancient helmet. Even without it, he's about as fearsome as they come."

"I can see that."

"You haven't got you eye on him, have you, Bella?"

"I've got my hands on you, haven't I?"

"Not now! Not in here! We're all too close together."

"Where, then? What's troubling you? You've never been one to roll over and have a headache, but it's always not now and not here? Where then? When? After the dragon has roasted us all to a turn? Like those trolls wanted to?"

"Well, we can't just…just do it, right under Uncle's very nose, can we?"

"He's never had any scruples about doing it to me, right under your nose, has he, Kili?"

"That's true."

"What about tonight, then? After we've talked."

"What? Now you've had a look at it, again, you can't think of anything else?"

"Now that I've had a look at all of you, I can't."

"Bella…"

"Hey! You said not in here, we're all too close together!"

"I can't help it! I'm being carried away by the moment! The cave goes further back. We'll roll ourselves a bit further into the shadows…"

"Now those are the kind of words I like to hear from you, Kili…"

"Oh, Bella, I love you so much…forgive me for neglecting you…"

"Oooh, Kili!..you are forgiven..."

Yes, I would have done it, too.

Because you can't really plan these sorts of things, and I had discovered that when Kili gets to walking and talking, he manages to find a way to talk himself out of it.

Well, as it turns out, it was too close in the cave.

Because Thorin spotted us, trying to steal away into the shadows.

"Oi! Bella! Kili! You two quit that over there! You're keeping us all awake, as it is! We took this rest so that you could get some sleep! And I don't want you two children malingering when we're walking thirty miles, complaining about how tired you are because you decided to whisper to each other all morning and roll around in the back of the cave!" Thorin rebuked us.

"Odin's eye, Thorin, don't be such a bastard to the lad and the lassie. They're young. Let them enjoy their youth!" Dwalin rebuked Thorin.

"Not in here. We're all too close together. Especially you, there in the back, my old friend! So close that you might be able to find that tattooed cock of yours made welcome by our curious burglar, and fit yourself in, so you can enjoy some of Bella's youth, after the boy's rolled over and gone to sleep! Nothing doing! Miss Baggins is our burglar, if any of you have any ideas otherwise, forget it. We're bound to come upon a whorehouse sooner or later and if we don't, Gandalf wants to takes us to Rivendell and that's just as good. Better, as you lot won't have to pay, those Elf women will make you all feel very welcome. Kili, Bella, get away from the back, and come over here with Fili where I can keep an eye on all three of you."

Thorin knew me too well.

I had been curious about Dwalin since I had met him, at Bag End, and I was even more curious after seeing his tattoo.

And nearly meeting my death had put in me in a strange, driven, compulsive desperation to get myself laid.

It was almost instinctual, and I think I would have yielded myself to almost any man, to satisfy it.

"I don't think you should be giving your Company the impression that all Elf woman are free with their favors." Gandalf huffed.

"Says you, who's known to spend a lot of time with Queen Galadriel, as her old man's another Elvin eunuch."

"I have only had the benefit of Queen Galadriel's council!' Gandalf protested.

"Aye and I'll bet you're hoping she'll be visiting at Rivendell so you can get up to your grey-bearded bollocks in her council, before you have them singed to cinders by Smaug." Thorin finished.

"Bella Baggins is right about you, Thorin Oakenshield! You are a crude, profane, bastard of a dirty old man!"

Gandalf got up and swearing loudly to himself, left the cave.

Again.

"I'll be damned, I was right!" Thorin said.

Everyone had a good laugh, Kili and I moved, and then we all went to sleep.

* * *

Thorin marched us forty miles that day, if he marched us one, and I felt as though he made everyone suffer for Kili and I having had a bit of a laugh, together.

The last thing that I wanted to do that night was any more walking, but I wasn't going to let Thorin get his way.

The good news is that even he was exhausted after all that hoofing, and he didn't notice Kili and I stealing away.

We didn't so much have a walk as a short limp a little way into the wood.

"What I need is a bath, a cold mug of ale, a hot meal, and a warm bed. If I was home, in the Shire, I'd be safe and warm, with a full belly, sound asleep. And here I am, on my way to go get burnt up by some bloody dragon. And we've barely got any water to drink, let alone to wash with. "

"I'm not ashamed to tell you, Bella, ever since those trolls got hold of me, I've been wishing I was back home, in the Blue Mountains."

"Soon you'll be in your proper home, Erabor."

"Or burnt to a crisp by Smaug. Durin's beard, I'd settle for just the bath."

"Is that really all you want, Kili? A bath?"

"No. Don't you think you might have left something you need off of your list, too?"

Sure, we might have been talking about it, planned it, even, but even as Kili was thinking about woolies down and kilt up, and I was thinking about having seen his beard, once again, we might as well have had Thorin standing two feet behind us, his presence was so heavy between us.

A long, sad, frustrated moment passed between us, and then I heard a promising sound.

"We might have the bath, anyway! Am I losing my mind, or do you hear water?"

The very idea of water made us quicken our pace, and we followed the sound through a tangle of brush, and came upon rushing water that was either a very large stream or a small river.

It was early spring, but it had been a warm day, and the night's chill hadn't really set in yet, and it had been a long, sweaty, backbreaking walk.

"Water! It's water!"

"Mahal be praised! I'll go and tell the others!"

Of course , the first order of business was for us all to fill up out canteens, but inasmuch as there were pots to wash and clothes to clean, there was also some fun to be had, if you were under 200.

Kili and Fili were the first out of their clothes and into the water, and soon after that Ori and Nori and then Bifur and Bofur.

As for Baggins the Burglar, I got my scarf from my pack and made a breechcloth, like the wild men wear in Rhovanion, and I took off everything but my short stays, and jumped into the water, too.

Of the older and middle aged dwarves, only Dwalin stripped down and hopped in, but Oin and Gloin and Dori and Bombur and Balin all put their feet in the water, and stripped down to their shirtsleeves, and washed their faces and hands.

Gandalf laughed to see us all having such a good time, and you know, I forgot all about Thorin until we heard a Dwarven war cry, and Thorin swung from a vine on the bank and into the water with a great splash.

Another grand entrance, indeed.

Balin came up with a large cake of soap, and we soon made it the world's largest bathtub.

While everyone, even our chieftain was distracted, Kili got out of the water, went and got our clothes from one side of the bank, took them over to the other and then got back in the water, and reminded me that now was our chance.

I didn't know that at the time, but when we got out of the water on the other bank, there're were our clothes.

Kili grabbed all of our things in one arm, and me in the other and we made our way into the brush.

When we found a small clearing he laid his cloak down on top of it, and we lay down on his cloak.

That feeling I'd had earlier, it was getting worse and worse.

"I have to tell you something, Bella."

"Can't it wait?" I asked.

"No. Because as long as my Uncle is around, I can't say it. I do not doubt for a minute that he loves you. I know this because I know that Uncle Thorin loves Fili and I, too. But not as much as he loves even the thought of great-grandfather's gold. The only thing he wants more than the gold is to have his throne, and for our people to reclaim Erabor. But, more than both, he wants his revenge. He is poisoned by his desire for power and money and revenge, and Uncle's desires poison everything he touches, and everything he loves. Uncle Thorin, would have you forget it. I don't wonder you'll want to forget it, yourself. And I'm not saying you shouldn't, at least for awhile. Because this time we have until we reach this home that I have never seen, so far away from the home you and I know, it might be the only time any of us have."

Kili stopped talking.

"Go on, Kili. Out with the rest of it." I encouraged him.

"I should be angry at you. For throwing me over for my Uncle. But, then again, you never threw me over, did you?"

"You and I were good friends, very good friends, before I met Thorin. Let alone went mad over him. He's never been faithful to any woman a day in his life. Why should I have insulted you, and destroyed our friendship, on his account? In the end, your friendship turned out to be something far better than his love."

I tried not to speak, bitterly.

But I did, anyway.

"He had no right. Do you know, I said to him, once, Uncle, you can have, you have had, hundreds, maybe even thousands of women. Why did you have to take mine?"

"Kili-"

"Let me finish, Bella. He said, I love her. And I said, that I loved you, too, and I was there, first. Uncle just laughed, and said that there was room enough in your bed and your heart, for both of us."

He stopped again.

"Just say what's on your mind."

"It's disloyal. And disrespectful."

The thing you have to understand about Kili, and for that matter, Fili, is that they had no father but Thorin.

I don't mean to say that Thorin was his sister's husband, now, but he raised both of them like they were his own sons.

So, I chose my words carefully.

"Kili, you honestly owe neither respect or loyalty to me, or Thorin, in matters of the heart."

"Well, it's only that, if all goes well, and we have a future, any of us, I think you should know that I have no desire for revenge. Or for a giant heap of gold. Or to sit on a throne. I just want to live long enough to see to it my uncle and my people get what they deserve, and then go home. To the Blue Mountains, and the Shire and Bree and all the other places I've known and loved all my life. My uncle does not love you, or life, or good food, good cheer, and even his own family, as much as he loves his crown and his hoard. But I do. Marry me, Bella. I do not blame or fault you for loving Thorin, because I love him, too. Though quite differently. I will give you what you want from my Uncle, what he wants to give you, but he can never give, and from him, you will never have. From both of us, and for his sake and mine, I love you, and I will be a good husband to you. All the days of my life."

"You really would marry me, even though you know I love your Uncle?"

"Yes. Because I know you love me, too. And if we should all survive, and my uncle becomes King Under the Mountain, if he should come to Bag End, unexpectedly, and tell me that I am sleeping in the spare room for awhile, I won't mind going. Because I know that after his visit, he'll be going back to his throne and his treasure, and may they both make him very happy, but I will be staying with you."

You know I started to cry?

Kili took me in his arms, and he held me, and kissed me, very sweetly and lightly and gently, as if he could kiss away my tears.

But those chaste kisses soon became deep, and hungry, and passionate.

I pushed my body up against Kili's, and he pulled me tighter into his arms, and stole the breath from my lips with his kisses, moaning in his throat.

And then?

Well, I know you want to hear about it, and I wanted him to do it, but the only thing that happened then was that Kili pulled himself away from me.

And Belladonna Took shoved aside Belladonna Baggins, and angrily came to the fore.

I gave him another shove.

"Damn you, Kili, nephew of Thorin, what are you about! Odin's beard, but you do blow hot and cold! Is this part of the scheme you and Fili have cooked up, to make my mind up for me?"

"It's Fili's scheme, not mine! And if I was following it, I wouldn't have just pushed myself away from you, would I? Well, I don't think it's right! Because my Uncle is likely about to get out of the water, and wonder where we are, and come looking to send me back to camp, and probably get you to do his braids for him. Maybe you are angry enough at him, Bella, to want him to catch us in the act. But I am not. So, I must go."

I must say, on Kili's part, that it was a fine and noble thing he did.

But, it was a fine sort of spot for Kili to leave me in, for after he had said his fine and noble words of love, he did nothing to put weight behind them.

It is, I suppose a good thing for me, that when it comes to matters of the heart, there is nothing of nobility about Thorin Oakenshield.

* * *

I do not know if Thorin followed us, and lay in wait, eavesdropping, for Kili to nobly take his leave, but he strode out from the trees, barefoot and naked but for the loincloth he wore under his breeches, with his clothes over his arm, and his boots in his hand.

Oh, I think he had followed us, and he was listening, and his entrance was a master stroke, on the wily old sinner's part.

"And here you are, Thorin, all of the sudden! Having a moment of nakedness in the moonlight, while I am having a moment of weakness!"

"What do you expect, Bella? You drag him into the night, every night, on a man's business, but my younger nephew is not yet a man, but a beardless boy. Although he at least has honor, which is more than I can say for Fili, another boy trying to do a man's business and win himself a wife. Thinks he can fook you into marrying him, does he? Well, you already know you can have him, why would you want to marry him on top of it, and have to look after him!"

Thorin hung his clothes in the lowest branches of the closest tree, except for his cloak, which he laid on the grass, fur side up.

"Sit with me, Bella, my braids need doing. And we must have words. Not insults, this time." he told me.

And pulled me into his lap.

Dressed as I was, only in my kilt and shirtsleeves, with my shirt half unbuttoned.

Thorin kissed me, and so desperate was I, I squirmed in his lap, and nearly swooned.

But he intended to take his time with me.

"Poor Bella. Cold and wet and lonely, thinking on how her romantic walk ended in a community swim. Let me braid your hair, first. I noticed how it is always hanging in your face. This is the way our women fix that problem. The style is not complicated, but it will work, and it suits you. May I?"

Well I know that hair-braiding is a very significant thing, among Dwarves, when women do it for me, so I imagine it meant something very important that Thorin asked if he could braid my hair.

Especially considering that he never had before, in all the years I knew him.

I don't know exactly what it all meant, except that Thorin was serious about trying to make amends.

"Alright."

Thorin combed out my damp hair with his comb, and braided the two pieces of my hair in the front in two braids, and then wrapped those two long, thin braids around my head and braided them together into one.

All the while stroking my hair and kissing my ears and my neck, until I was trembling all over as if shivering from the cold.

He had two little mithril hair clips in his hand, engraved with Dwarven knots, and inlaid with a piece of turquoise, and used one to fix the two braids where they joined together, and one to fix them at the end.

He spoke to me, too, as he he went about his work, both seducing me and braiding my hair, deftly, with the able, confident hands of a master craftsman.

"What are these chips? A wedding gift?" I managed to ask.

"No. Bella, you may be a grown woman, but you remain far too young to be married. This is your first adventure, abroad in the wide world. I take care of my nephews because I am, for all practical purposes, their father. Why should you take on the responsibility, and believe me, it is a hell of a responsibility, when when you can leave things as they are? Enjoy your youth, my girl, for it is fleeting. You don't have any idea what I mean when I say that, do you?"

Thorin kissed me again, and this time his great hunger for me, as great as mine for him, rudely intruded into his deliberate seduction.

"By the gods, Thorin, hurry!" I panted.

"I had better say what I have to say, while I can! I think that marriage should be for the sake of love. And you do not love either of my lads. Fili doesn't care about it, and Kili is too young to understand even the meaning of the word. I am not a young man, anymore, Bella. And the years have worn hard on me thick old hide. I do not think that I will see 200, let alone 250. In thirty or forty years, Kili will be about a hundred, a grown man, and his brother ten years older. And you will be in your late sixties. Hardly middle-aged by the reckoning of you Tooks, who all have such long lifespans. Then you may marry with a full heart and a clear conscience. And I may go to my rest knowing that for the last years of my life, I had the pleasure and the comfort of my lands, my kingdom, my home, and the company of the only woman I have loved, since I was a stupid, silly boy, younger than my nephews. Will you think on it?"

Now, as he spoke, Thorin had unbuttoned my shirt, and he interrupted himself with kissing and caressing my breasts.

My lips felt as if they were swollen, and hot, and so did my nipples, and when Thorin's lips touched them, right after he asked me if I would think on it, I wound my fingers in his thick, black, grey-streaked curls, and let the first wave of my long-denied pleasure break over me.

"That's only once, Bella. By the time we get up from these furs, you'll have to count the number of trips to the moon I've given you in tens. But fisrt? My hair needs braiding."

I wanted to ask him why in the unholy hell we needed to do that for, but then I realised we were in the middle of some kind of Dwarven courtship ritual I didn't know a damn thing about.

That and I wanted so badly to get my hands on the man, I didn't care if it was only to braid his hair.

Thorin handed me his comb, and the clips for his braids, and I steadied my hands before I combed out the first bit of his damp hair that I would braid.

I steadied my nerves, too, and came up with something to say for myself.

"With a special apartment and a secret stair, leading from the king's rooms to that of the royal mistress. When she is not smoking her pipe in her garden, in the Shire. That is some kind of offer, for a King to make to a little Hobbit girl."

"I am not yet a King on my throne. Just a blacksmith in his only set of good clothes, leading a band of courageous fools on a fool's errand. I may finish this adventure back in the halls of my fathers, or I might finish it as a pile of bones, ash, and soot. Or lying dead with an Elf's arrow in my heart. Or a man's."

I fixed the clip on the end of one braid and before I started on the other, I couldn't help myself but run my hands over Thorin's broad, hairy chest.

"Finish me braids, girl! And be quick about it!" he growled.

"By all the gods, Thorin, what a man you are! So excuse me if I don't believe it. You're too tough, too strong, and too crafty of an old bastard to get yourself be taken by a lucky shot. Or an unlucky dragon."

But I knew he was right.

I was looking at Thorin's hair, not his face, but he put his hand under my chin and lifted my head so I had to look him in the eye.

"You're mine, Bella Baggins. That's my ring on your hand. You have not removed it since I put it on your finger. Would I insult you further, and ask you to be my kept woman? My nephew promised the Thain of the Shire and the clan of the Tooks, in the name of Dwarfkind, and the Heirs of Durin that your honor would be satisfied. I love you, girl. I am asking you to be my Queen."

I was so surprised to hear those words come from Thorin's lips that I dropped the braid from my hands.

And then I had my hands on either side of his face, and we were having another hungry, violent, passionate kiss.

I began to feel giddy and lazy and drunk with lust.

I even laughed, a little.

"You can't marry me, Thorin! Your heirs can't have Hobbit's blood!"

"Fili is my heir, Bella. And you give me too much credit, an old man like me, that there is any life left in my seed. Still, I would not be ashamed for my sons to have the blood of the Tooks. I do not expect your answer, now. Your contract says you'll pick your man at the journey's end. But it's me you love, Bella. Not my nephew. Either of them."

It was hard for me to find any words in my mouth but 'yes', sitting in Thorin's lap, throbbing with desire, and having been asked to be the Queen Under the Mountain.

But a Took is never utterly bereft of her senses, and I soon recovered mine.

With great difficulty.

"How can I marry a man I do not trust? And how do you presume to earn back my trust?"

"I've no fookin' idea! But I'll start with this. I did wrong by you and there's no excusing it. I am sorry."

I could not believe that I had heard what I thought I had heard.

For a moment, I was even snapped out of the trance of lust I had been happily lost in.

"Thorin, son of Thrain son of Thror, you miserable old bastard, did you just admit you were wrong and apologize?"

"I did."

"Why? Because you want to fuck me?"

"No. Because I was wrong, and I am sorry for it. Durin's beard, lass, I think it's a certainty I'm going to fook you! You're half naked, sitting in me lap; I don't think I'd need to fake an apology to get under your kilt, now, would I? Do you not think I can ever admit that I have been wrong? Or make an apology? Granted I think that's the…second or third time in me life I ever had. But even I can make the occasional mistake."

"Well, you're halfway to winning my trust back, by admitting you were wrong. And apologising."

Still I was so unmanned by that I did the second braid wrong, again.

So I undid the part of the second braid I had done.

"Bella! Fix it later, girl! That's good enough! " Thorin growled.

He'd had about enough of waiting, and so had I.

"And what does itt get me? My apology?" he asked.

"Just what you've come for." I replied.

Well, even a Hobbit does not live by bread alone, you know.

Thorin pushed my shirt from my shoulders, and unfastened my kilt, then unwound it from around my waist, and he'd gotten rid of his loincloth, too.

Leaving both of us gloriously naked.

"Do it again, Thorin!"

"Do what, my little love?"

"What you done, before. When you had me pushed up against that tree. I've never had it done as well as you do, Thorin. I'll do it to you, too, I want to. I do! All at once! You've got more than one go in you, for me, don't you? Let's just do it that way, the first time."

"You're a dirty little thing, Bella. You belong with a dirty old man, like me. Whatever you want, my girl..."

Have I used the word glorious, already?

Well, so what if I have, because glorious is what it was, and glorious is how Thorin made me feel, and there's no other word for it.

Gods, if the vicar had been there a few minutes after we were through, I would have married Thorin and not thought twice about it.

For those of you hearing my tale who are men, you won't know what I mean, but for the women, do you know the way you only seem to come your lot in your dreams, and you wake up and wonder, why can't I do it like that when I'm awake?

That's the way Thorin made me feel, and that was before I had the pleasure, well, I'll be a fool, a stupid, love-struck fool, about it and say it, the pleasure and the privilege of having him on top of me, Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain.

I kept my eyes open the whole time, too, because I wanted to see his face.

There wasn't one other man in the world, and I forgot all the wrongs, even the worst one, that Thorin ever did me, while I had him in my arms and between my legs, panting over me in Khuzdul how he loved me, finding the spot, the spot that breaks the world like a dropped dish when he hit it every stoke with his lovely big cock, and I might have even told him, kissed him on the lips and told him that I loved him too.

I did, I told him many times, I fairly screamed it at the top of my lungs.

And I meant it, too.

But.

Certainly there's a but, there always is, isn't there?

But the plain fact is that all of it couldn't erase the kind of betrayal between Thorin and me, and love doesn't either.

I told him so and all, as soon as I caught my breath.

Do you want to know what he said?

If I tell you, it'll spoil the whole works, but I'll tell you, anyway.

Thorin laughed, and he laughed loudly, and for a long time.

"Durin's brass balls, Bella, if I have your love, an' you'll be doin' up my braids the way you've done Fili's, I can fookin' wait for the rest. It's a damn sight better than havin' nothin' but your disgustyou're your Tookish lip, which is all I've had for me trouble, ever since we left Bag End!"

Well, at least he's an honest man, for all his faults, Thorin is.

And I can overlook quite a few faults, and try very hard to regain me trust in him, even after what he done to me, for such a man as Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror.

* * *

By the time Thorin and I returned to camp, Bombur had a fire going, and everyone was queuing up for dinner.

Which was odd, because we had already had a meal.

If you could call such a meagre and piss poor snack as we'd had earlier a meal, that is.

Kili was the hero of the day, for he had taken a deer with his new bow, and in clean clothes with venison on the menu, everyone was in good spirits.

He came running up to both of us, full of his big story.

He picked me up and kissed me and spun me around and then put me down and started describing his victory.

"Did you do that, Uncle? You hair looks beautiful, Bella. Fili's going to be mad but I don't care. I'll braid you when I braid you, Bella, because I love you, you and this bow you found me! The doe, I got her right through the eye! You both should have seen me! I was on the other side of the riverbank, and there she was, on the far side! But not by the bank. She was all the way up to the top of the hill, halfway back to camp. But the wind was right, and this bow you found me, Bella, it must have been made for or by one of the gods! I took my time, and I lined up the shot. You should have seen the arrow fly!" Kili told us.

"I couldn't believe the lad even tried, let alone made the shot! And right through the eye! And it's a fine hide." Dwalin told us, beaming with pride.

"I wish I had been there to see it, Kili lad. What will you do with the hide?" Thorin asked.

"Well, after I tan it, I thought I would ask Nori to use some of it to make a pair of sandals for Bella. He can keep the rest, as payment. Would you ask him for me, Uncle?"

"Ask him, yourself, Kili. You're old enough, now. But don't let the rogue cheat you. If he does, I'll take the difference out of his hide!"

On my grandfather's soul, did I feel guilty!

"Kili, I don't wear shoes."

"You should, on a journey like this! And us with no ponies! What if your feet get cut up, on some rocks? Or if you should step on an old arrowhead, or a snake would bite you? They'd only be sandals."

"You should consider it, Bella, and not be such a stubborn Took." Thorin recommended.

"I'll think about it." I said.

Kili looked crestfallen.

Dwalin noticed the look on his face and called Thorin away

"What's the matter, Kili?"

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No. I have. Your Uncle…I…"

"Is that all? I know that, Bella, I can see your braids, can't I? Why would I be upset about you and Uncle patching up your differences?"

"You really don't care, do you, Kili?"

"I never have. So, then, you'll accept my gift?"

"I'll try the sandals. They may come in handy. Especially when it's cold."

All of the sudden, I felt as though things had greatly improved.

"You know what we need, to go with our feast. Potatoes. I just saw a bunch of them, on my way back. I think I'll do some chips."

Bombur and Dori didn't usually let anyone near their cooking, but they'd had mine , so I was allowed near fire with my frying pan, and I did up fifteen potatoes for chips if I did one.

We all had a fine meal, and for the first time in a long time, everyone lay down to sleep wearing clean clothes and with a full belly, and we were even in a very pleasant place to camp.

The only strange thing was that before I went to go and lie down, Balin put the hood of my cloak up over my head.

"Better not let Fili see those until the morning." He advised.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I'll tell you, In the morning." Balin replied.

So, I went to go and lie down, between Fili and Kili, as usual, with me hood up over me head.

"Tomorrow, we should all insist, all three of us, that we're not going any further until we've had a rest." Kili decided.

"Taking over, little brother?" Fili joked.

"I'll agree to it. What about you, Fili?"

"The longer it is before I get fried or eaten alive by Smaug, the more I like it. I'll stand with you."

Dwalin overheard us.

"I think that's a fine idea, myself. And my brother will agree. Thorin will take our council, seriously. Now stop your plotting, and go to sleep."

Well, I was too tired and too happy to do anything else.

* * *

After an unexpected swim and an equally unexpected full meal, the Company's camp was as quiet as it had been during the entire journey.

But Thorin was not sleepy, and, it seemed, neither was Gandalf.

"What do you think of all this talk of weddings and marriage, Gandalf?"

"I agree with you that your nephews are not ready for marriage. They are not yet men, they are both still boys. In another ten or fifteen years, maybe twenty. As for Bella, I think she may be. With the right man, of course."

"So do I. I take it's we're talking about me."

"Yes, Thorin. You. But how to you propose to be king Under the Mountain from Bag End?"

"Erebor has had no king for almost 200 years. If it only has a queen for half the year, I think we will all do alright. And I'm almost sure the lads will get homesick for the Blue Mountains. They can keep an eye on Bella, when she is in the Shire, and they can conduct her long her journey home. Fili is already my heir, so I don't need to worry about producing one. And if I am not as old as I think, and Bella and I have sons and daughters, they would be welcome. Indeed, I would consider them greater, rather than lesser, for their Tookish blood. Is it so terrible a thing, Gandalf, for an old man who has had a hard life to dream, that in his old age, he might have the comfort of a wife and sons, to share in his birthright with?"

"What about Fili and Kili?"

"I think they'd make a fine pair of uncles."

"I mean, don't they have their eye on marrying Belal Baggins, as well?"

"They'll both barely be 100 when I go. Plenty of time for them to marry Bella."

Gandalf raised an eyebrow.

"Just as the Tooks have long lifespans, for Hobbits, the Heirs of Durin have long lifespans, for Dwarves. Your grandfather died in battle when he was 248, an age when most Dwarrows are happy if they can walk from one part of their halls to the next. Both of Thror's brothers lived to be 300, I think Gor lived to be 310, actually and neither of them had a day of infirmity or senility before they died. If you take Bella to wife, even though you do not intend, obviously, to cut your nephews out of the bargain, they will never be her husbands."

Thorin frowned.

"Well, I'm the King, aren't I? I'll make out a special dispensation in thirty years or so for her to marry the lads, as well. What's one more husband, more or less, so she'll have three, instead of two! See here, Gandalf, I'm not giving her up! And I won't be creeping up the back stairs while my nephews are striding down the front!"

"Perhaps, Thorin, you are counting your chickens before they are hatched. We still have quite a task at hand. Do you notice how quiet it is, in your encampment, tonight? That is the sound of contentment. There had been little of that, on this journey."

"That is true. I almost forgot what it was, to be clean, and have a full belly. Some of these men have seen too many winters. And others too few. And then, there is the Hobbit girl. With no pony and not even a pair of shoes. I don't know, Gandalf. Perhaps I have been driving them all too hard."

"You have, Thorin. As if Smaug was at our backs, and not out in front of us. The weather is good, and we have fresh water, nearby. You should let everyone rest here, for a few days, and then press on to Rivendell."

"You'll be waiting a lot fookin' longer than that for me to break bread with Elves!"

"Don't be so damned stubborn, Thorin Oakenshield! Your company needs a well deserved rest, and you'll have marched them all the way to Erabor for nothing if you don't go to Rivendell and I can't charm Lord Elrond into translating that map for you!

"I will ask no charity of Elves."

"You have no quarrel with the elves of Rivendell! They have not wronged you in any way!"

"They have. Bella was promised marriage by one of Elrond's folk. True to form for his kind, the Elf called Coruadan, son of Amlugaran, jilted Bella. He stole a horse from her, and two purses heavy with gold, leaving her with the food that provided our feast. This Elf has wronged our burglar, and the Shirefolk. I am the chieftain of this company. The honor of my burglar is my responsibility."

"You have not been concerned with the honor of quite a few women since you were seventeen years old, Thorin Oakenshield! Perhaps younger. You want the Elf's head on a platter, because he wronged the woman you love. I did not hear what you said to each other, but I heard you, a few nights before the encounter with the trolls, screaming at each other. When we had ponies, I noticed you looking back, often, to see if hers was keeping up. And tonight, you lingered long by the banks of that river with her. But even so, when you returned to camp, together, you are not so, right now, are you? If all was well between you and Bella, you would not be here, talking to me. You are not so old that you would not be back at that riverbank, again! Now I want the truth. And I will settle for nothing less, or I will go no further with this Company."

"The truth? I canna repair the damage I have done, the wrong I did to Bella, in one night. No matter the significance of it. Although it definitely put me up a peg or two in her estimation. You know, Gandalf, in my time. I've had more women of all the races than there are women of my own, living. They can put it on me grave. If it was a daughter of the Father of All, and it had a cunny, Thorin Oakenshield was there. But if they've got room enough left on the stone, they can say that there were only two that he loved. One he lost, when he was a boy, and he lost his kingdom. The other was Belladonna Baggins. And I fear that I may have lost her, too."

* * *

**SHAMELESS PLUG: IF YOU LIKE THIS STORY CHECK OUT "RINGS", in LOTR under BOROMIR/HOBBIT. THAT STORY IS GETTING NO LOVE, AT ALL!**

* * *

**_Well, soap fans, the suds are beginning to fly! Do I smell the scent of rivalry between Thorin and his heir? And has Fili a leg to stand on, besides the one in the middle? And just what did Bella get herself into, letting Thorin braid her hair? What has the Majestic One got up his sleeve? But, true love aside, have you noticed what I noticed? Dwalin seems to have his eye on Bella, and she certainly has taken a second look at him. Has the wily old warrior got plans to retire to being the master of Bag End? And what about Kili? He may be the youngest, but he knows how to keep his cards close to the vest. He's going to stand his ground and keep his place, no matter if it's his uncle, his cousin,or his brother he plays second fiddle, to. As long as he gets to keep playing his tune. And just what is it that Thorin has done to Bella Baggins, his great betrayal, and how did the Heirs of Durin get mixed up in the love life of a Took, in the first place? Tune in next time, and some, if not all, will be revealed!_**


	3. The Conscience of the King

**Chapter Three: The Conscience of the King**

**Bree, Two Years Before the Quest**

In his dreams, as in his waking life, Thorin Oakenshield travelled the length and breadth of Middle Earth.

Even moreso than his fellow Dwarves, Thorin was restless, driven to keep moving.

It often puzzled the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains that even after Thorin had spent some 25 or 30 years, making a home in exile for the Dwarves of Erebor in the ruins of Belegost, he had nothing good to say about his own halls, where he was Chieftain.

He considered them poor lodgings in exile.

Indeed, after his nephews were grown, he spent as much as six or eight months of the year wandering, and living in much poorer lodgings, by far.

Dis explained it best to Thorin's nephews.

"Your Uncle is a good man, and a good king, but his heart is heavy with lust. He lusts for revenge, and for gold, and for power, and even for love. He thinks that he will find them, out there, in the world, because he did not find them here, in all the years he curbed his wanderlust, to raise you. But what he seeks is lost. Even if his kingdom is restored."

Thorin would reject those insights.

He was always sure that the keys to Erebor were just over the horizon; just barely out of his reach.

Often, when he awoke in the morning , he would stop and take a moment to reconcile where he had been in his dream, to where he had been a few months before, and finally, to where he was, presently.

Presently, Thorin was awakened by the cold, it was brittle and bitter, and leeched from every crack and crevice in the dilapidated old shack that he paid far too much per month to that fat innkeeper for.

Thinking on the man reminded Thorin that he was in Bree, in Eriador.

"Rohan." Thorin said, to himself, his teeth chattering together with the cold as he started a fire in the hearth.

"Thengel of Rohan offers me a hall, and not a hovel! To be at court! A smithy and not a shack. To be addresed, properly, as My Lord Thorin! To hell with the bloody Blue Mountains! Let the rest of them scrape and scramble. A King offers his fellow ruler the recognition he deserves, and a noble position. Lord High Smith of Edoras. And I'm to crawl back to the bloody Blue Mountains, like a frightened fookin' dog? To that farce of a fiefdom? I'd whore my arse to every randy Elf bitch in Middle Earth to raise the money to get there, and cut the throats of all their men, and crawl on my hairy belly to get to Rohan, if I had to! By every bristly hair on my grandfather's beard, I would!"

He cracked the ice away from the basin which stood on the nightstand made from and empty barrel, and threw some cold water on his face.

It had become marginally warmer in the hovel, but his eyes stung with the smoke the room was full of.

"By the short and curly hairs of Durin's second beard, I will tear that bastard inkeeper's head off, bury him deep, and piss on his grave if that chimney is blocked, again!" he roared.

There was no man, Elf or Dwarf in Middle Earth that had a way with obscenity and profanity like the King Under the Mountain did when he was angry.

Cursing a blue streak, Thorin grabbed a broom from the corner and angrily thrust it up the flue.

He was rewarded for his trouble with a faceful of black soot, but at least the smoke began to go up and out.

Choking on soot and his own rage, Thorin unbarred the front door and left the rest of the smoke out, and a bitter swirl of snow and cold in.

Already, there was a man at his door, leading a limping horse.

Some slope-necked yokel of a farmer, who was related three ways to his his own father, with a swaybacked nag.

"Good mornin', Master Blacksmith." The man said.

"Good morning? What is there good in a fookin' morning such as this one?" Thorin replied.

The man picked his nose.

Thoughtfully.

"Precious little. Me horse needs shoein'. How soon can you manage it?'

"How soon? Do you not see me standing here, barefoot, in me nightshirt? Can you not wait for me to put on my trousers and light the fire in the forge? Or would you have me use me cock to hammer the shoes onto your nag's hooves?"

"And how would a Dwarf manage a feat like that?"

Thorin lifted his nightshirt.

Briefly.

"By Thor, man, I have heard Mr. Butterbur's barmaids chattering to each other about the size of the hammer the Blacksmith keeps under his apron, but I take me hat off to you, sir ! Faith, though, it looks like a third leg on one so short as you!"

"Why don't you show me yours? I need a laugh this morning." Thorin replied.

But the yokel, a good-natured fellow, only laughed.

"Your wit is quicker than mine, King Under the Mountain. I'll tie her up by the smithy and go round to the Prancing Pony. Gives me an excuse to get away from the witch's kitchen, and drink all day. Who knows? Maybe she'll look like she done, when I married her, after I'm drunk."

Thorin turned to go into his smithy, when Baranby Butterbur, his landlord, and the innkeeper of the Prancing Pony showed up with a Hobbit chimney sweep.

"I could see the smoke from across the yard, Master Blacksmith. But we will get to the bottom of it , now. Filbert Gamgee is the finest sweep from here to Buckland. He'll see to the problem."

Thorin almost felt bad about spending the morning cursing the man.

Butterbur was a good enough fellow; the troubles of Dwarf-kind were not his fault.

"See that you do, Master give me timer to dress, and get started with me work." Thorin told the sweep.

The sweep took off his hat, and bowed his head.

"Take all the time ye'll be wantin', Yer Majesty." he said.

One thing about Hobbits, unlike men and Elves, they had some respect for Dwarves, and so, Dwarves had respect for them.

* * *

Thorin worked straight through the morning, and the afternoon, and then well into the evening.

It was warmer, with the forge going, in his smithy, which had one side open to the elements, than in the hovel.

After the cold and desolate morning, he did not want to face the hovel, again.

Another supper of cold chicken, another freezing night in the lumpy bed between cold sheets, with nothing more than a jug of cheap red wine to keep himself warm.

His nephews, whom he would take with him, as far as Bree, on some of his journeys, they had made themselves happier lodgings.

Fili, who was blond, burly, and charming had all of the barmaids at the Prancing Pony vying for the right to do his braids, wash his sooty, clothes, cook for him and take him to their beds.

He was late in the morning, coming to the smithy.

But Thorin let it be, for he knew that Fili stayed late in the morning with a girl not just for his pleasure, but also for his bread and board.

That was a favorite racket of Thorin's, but he had already worn out his welcome with those girls.

But Kili, he was even smarter, for all his youth and shyness, for he had found himself a good woman, a Tookish lass, of the Shire, who shared her home with him, when Kili was not in the wood with the one-eyed hunstman Thorin had found him seasonal work with, as he was a fine bowman and tracker, but a rotten blacksmith.

Thorin did not have enough respect for most of the yokels and mongrels and wastrels that were his clientele at his makeshift smithy in Bree to put on a shirt or wipe the soot and sweat from his bare chest, arms and face before receiving them.

He just took off his apron and shouted for them to come in.

However, when that customer turned out to be a woman of the Shire, he often wished he had made himself more presentable.

It wasn't that all the women of men were ugly, gangly, fat, or slatternly, but in Bree, most were some combination of those.

But the Shirefolk, their women, though beardless, they had quality to them.

He never saw one who was ugly, even the fat old grandmothers had those same wide eyes and curly hair and pretty face with a pleasant air that the young girls did.

Their granddaughters, though, they were something to be seen.

Wide-hipped and buxom, with merry smiles on their full lips, pretty and cheerful and fair as country milkmaids, with long curly hair in all shades.

There was one, in particular that caught his eye, partly because she stood out from the rest, and that intrigued him.

And partly because Kili couldn't have enough of talking about Bella, Bella, Bella.

Three years before he and Fili had met Belladonna Baggins at a spring festival, in Bree.

It w as the first time for all three of them, away from their father's houses, and out in the world.

Thorin also had the feeling it was the first time for some other things, for Kili and the Hobbit girl, that summer, and every summer, since, the lad couldn't wait to see his Bella.

Kili was a romantic boy, fill of wild notions of undying love, and Thorin was surprised to hear that the girl was not as foolish.

Because Kili would complain that whenever he tried to profess his, deep, true, sincere and undying love, Bella Baggins would laugh, gently, and remind him that they were very young and very stupid, and that they were the very beast of friends, already, but love was a thing that only came with time.

A wise thing, for a young girl to know.

But, as Thorin gathered from the locals, Belladonna Baggins was not like other Hobbits, as she was a Took.

When he was a young Dwarf, and first came to the Blue Mountains after the Battle of Azanulbizar, he had occasion to meet her great-grandfather, Bullroarer Took, when the Hobbits and the Dwarves fought a common enemy when goblins invaded their lands from the Misty Mountains.

Her grandfather, Gerontius Took, who had lived to be 130, quite a feat for a Hobbit, had made it his business to know when Thorin was near the Shire, or even in Bree, plying his trade.

On the Old Took's last visit, Thorin was in the Shire, doing some piecework, and Gerontius had an ear trumpet and a cane, but he still came to inquire as to the health and welfare of Thorin Oakenshield, who had, in his time, stood and fought for the Shire, as the Shirefolk had stood and fought for what the Dwarves had left in the Blue Mountains.

And to give Thorin the job of shoeing every Tookish horse in the Shire and Buckland.

He returned to the Blue Mountains that winter in a wagon heavy with gold, supplies, and gifts for his nephews, thanks to the generosity of the Old Took.

They were small folk in stature, these Tooks, but their hearts were as those of lions.

He had met Gerontius' granddaughter, in passing, he could not help but do so, as close as she and Kili were.

Belladonna Baggins had the same look to her; she wore the same Tookish plaid kilt, and held her head high and swung her arms wide when she walked.

But this was the first time he had occasion to get a look at her, and he could understand Kili's fascination.

Like her grandsires, she had dark hair and dark eyes, but unlike most Hobbits she had a pixieish look to her face; it was heart-shaped rather than round, and she had high cheekbones, a strong chin, and a little turned up nose.

She had the same sort of figure as most of the women of the Shire, but standing before him in a kilt, and woolen leggings, barefoot, her waistcoat unbuttoned and the laces at the front of her shirt missing an eyelet or two and tied crookedly, he could tell she was more of the outdoor type.

Meeting her outside his smithy, Thorin saw that her brown eyes were full of mischief and merriment; he almost expected her to sprout wings from her back and fly away with a tinkling laugh.

Also, it was the first time in his long life of nearly 170 years that Thorin could recall a woman shaking his hand.

Fili chuckled, and turned back to his work.

"Master Blacksmith, it is good of you to see me so late in the day! May I come in where it's warm? Thank you. Thor's hammer, but it's freezing out! Glad I brought my fur cape but not glad to have it in here. I'll just put it right over there, that seems a good spot. I would have been here, sooner, but, well, I was not. In case you don't recall meeting me, my name is Belladonna Baggins, daughter of Bungo Baggins and Belladonna Took. I'm a friend of your nephews. Your services were recommended to me by my late grandfather, Gerontius Took, who said that you were the best metalworker in all of Middle-Earth. This rather large and heavy platter, which I have been carrying for several days in all this bad weather, which accounts for my general slovenliness which I hope you will pardon me for, belonged to my great Grand-Uncle, Bullroarer Took, with whom I believe, you fought a war against goblins with. Him being a warrior, I expect he would approve of my having this rather useless and heavy mithril dish melted down, and made into a battle axe. Also, in my pack I have great-grand uncle's mithril shirt. He was some three inches taller than I, and our measurements differ greatly, so I would need it to be modified to fit me. My measurements, which I have written down and have in one of these pockets are 44 around the shoulders, 44 at the bust, 30 or 31 at the waist and 44 or 45 at the hip, depending on whether I have been walking all summer, or eating all winter. Can you manage it?"

Miss Baggins delivered much of that speech without taking a breath, to boot.

"Are you also planning on going to war, Miss Baggins?"

"Only if it comes to me. No, it's only that those bastards in this run-down burg have changed their rules for the Annual Axe-Throwing Championship at the Midsummer Fair. You must have a mail shirt and a proper battle axe to compete. Cowards! Well if that's what they want, that's what I'll have! I have been meaning to get myself a proper axe made. I did ask Fili, first, you know, but he told me the task was beyond his skill, and I had better commission his Uncle. And finally, this is the axe I'm using, now. You know. For purposes of size. If you don't use the whole platter, keep the balance of the mithril as your payment. If you do, I'm good for the money. I am the Mistress of Bag End, and my late father, bless his soul, he wasn't a poor man. So, can you manage it? Fili said you'd be able to."

"Certainly, Miss Baggins. In fact I think Fili is up to the task, but it's not the thought that counts. Especially when you're working in mithril. It was better for him to give the task to me. I will make you such an axe, Miss Baggins, that even if you are not as skilled as all your medals and trophies say you are, you could win that contest with your eyes closed."

"I am sure you will. Although I hate to ask you to destroy one work of art you have made to create another."

Thorin took a second look at the platter.

"Durin's beard, that is my mark! Well, I was hardly more than a boy when I made this. About the age Fili is now. Fili, lad quit that damned hammering for a moment, and look at this platter."

Fili picked up the heavy mithril dish, and examined it, carefully, on both sides.

"Durin's beard, Uncle, this is just as sloppy of a hack job as I would do, with a piece like this."

"I know. And to think I told you I was a better smith when I was your age than you are. I was full of shite. This platter is hardly a work of art, Miss Baggins. But I promise that your axe will be. When you are done with that batch of horseshoes, clean that monsrosity, melt it down, and pour it into the mold for the ingots. It ought to make three."

Thorin had already made up his mind to have this girl, but the question was, where and when?

And the next question was, what kind of estate had the late Mr. Baggins left to his daughter, and what use could it be made of for Thorin Oakenshield?

Not that he would rob the girl blind, but when you frequently had no home and little money, what was the harm in having a friendly place to go where there was an eager and lonely and wealthy young heiress waiting on you?

What's good for my nephew is good for me, and perhaps better, Thorin decided.

He thought up a solution, and thought it up, quick.

"I don't have the means, here, to forge your axe, Miss Baggins. We'll be returning to the Blue Mountains, at the end of the week, and I will do the work, there. Will you return to Bree, in the Spring, when the work is finished, or would you like it delivered?"

"Oh, it would be easier on my back to have it delivered. I'll pay the extra charge."

"No extra charge. Your great grand-uncle and your grandfather were both good customers, and friends. And you have paid me several times over, in looking after my nephew, when he goes to visit you, and gives me a little time off from having to take care of him! You may expect delivery in two months time, with the coming of spring."

Bella put her heavy fur-lined cloak back on, thanked them both, and went on her way.

"You don't make deliveries, Uncle. You're up to something."

"Come Spring, I'll be up to my bollocks in that sweet little Hobbit, if I have my way! A woman like that ought to have a man's company, not just a beardless boy's. Mind, I don't intend to steal her from your brother. Just to borrow her, for a while."

"Keeping it in the family, Uncle?"

"That's not a bad idea, lad! Having the girl in our family! She's a rich woman. And a Took. Fine folk, the Tooks. Maybe I'll get her married up to your brother, and you. But reserve a little time for your old Uncle, alright?"

Fili laughed.

"What's this, Uncle Thorin? Love at first sight?"

"It's something, Fili lad! There's just something about that girl."

Fili laughed.

"You don't know by half, Uncle. But you'll find out." Fili told him.

* * *

As Thorin was making his plans for the seduction of Belladonna Baggins, he realised that he had forgotten something.

She was Kili's girl.

Unlike his brother, Kili was shy with women, and self conscious about having stubble and fuzz rather than a beard.

So, in all possibility, the Tookish lass was probably the only woman he had ever lain with.

Thorin decided it would be best to speak to Kili about the girl.

"How well do you know that Tookish lass, Bella Baggins, Kili, lad?"

"As well as a man can know a woman. We are very close. Even as friends. Or rather, we were."

"I see. Has the girl any other men friends she's as close to, as you?"

"Yes! She does! What's more, he's close to me as well! I'll never speak to either of them! Ever again! Are you interested in Bella, Uncle?"

"Does that trouble you?"

"No. I don't care!"

"Kili, don't act like you don't care if you do. Did the girl promise you she wouldn't have any other men around?"

"No. But-"

"Did you tell her that was the way you wanted it?"

"No. But-"

"The other fella? Did he get there, first?"

"Yes. But-"

"But nothing. You can't expect a woman to know what you want of her if you don't tell her, lad. Never mind. You'll figure it out next time. With the next girl."

Kili only nodded.

* * *

"So you see, Gandalf, I didn't seduce her away from Kili."

Gandalf frowned.

"No. All you did was take advantage of a quarrel that your nephew, who you raised from infancy, was having with the girl he was obviously hopelessly in love with, so that you could have her for yourself,"

"I didn't think I was going to go mad for her, did I? I thought I'd have a fling with the lass, and that would be the end of it."

"Ten days journey from your halls in the Blue Mountains for a fling with a woman in Hobbiton, when you probably had a girl in every town between Bree and Hobbiton, and every merry widow in your halls, awaiting you along the way? You were already mad for her, Thorin! As mad as you are for vengeance against your enemies, and for your grandfather's gold! And when you go mad for something, Thorin Oakenshield, nothing stands in your way of getting it. Not even your own nephew's happiness."

"I didn't get in the way of his happiness, did I? I can't help it if I fell for the same girl!"

"You could have held yourself in check."

"Held myself in check! Look now, you're a man like I am, and any other man is, aren't you, Gandalf?"

Gandalf knew exactly what Thorin was talking about, and his face turned red.

"Yes, in fact. Yes, I am."

"Then you know what it is to burn for a woman! Durin's beard, you don't even know why, but there are times, you meet a woman and you can't stop from thinking about her! And when you do think about her, your balls start to ache from just the idea of not having her! And the thought that you might never have her? It drives your brains to distraction! If you're a man under those robes, then you've got to know what that feeling is like. And you've got to know that you very rarely have it for a convenient woman, at a convenient time! Even if you knew it was dead wrong, when you had the girl, right there, when she was willing, fookin' hell, when she was eager, did you hold yourself in check? Well? Did you?"

Gandalf smiled.

In spite of himself.

"No. I didn't. And in my case the woman was another man's wife. The wife of a very dear friend. He had taken a vow of celibacy. I did hold myself in check, until she confessed that she had feelings for me, as well."

"Then you've got nothin' to say to me about it!"

"Yes I have! The lady's husband, he was never deceived, by us, as to what was transpiring. And we are all of us grown people! I did not steal a wide-eyed girl from a beardless boy, using all the power and might and influence I had as a wizard and a man of the world!'

"Neither did I, Gandalf! Bella was no babe in the Shire! Let me finish the story…"

* * *

Thorin's first trip to Bag End did not go quite as he had planned.

Although Miss Baggins was gracious enough to have made dinner for him, and considering the length of his journey, allowed him to spend the night, she politely showed Thorin where the bathroom was, explained that he could eat what he wanted from the larder and use as many towels as he saw fit to, it was ultimately that is your room and good night.

Similarly, in the morning he awoke to the smell of several breakfast dishes cooking, and she said nothing of his spending a good forty-five minutes taking advantage of the hot running water in using it all up and taking a very long bath and washing his hair and beard.

There was, however, a smirk on that bad pixie's face of hers as they progressed through breakfast.

"I suppose have not been as smart and clever as I thought I was."

"Honestly, Master Blacksmith, I think you have outsmarted yourself. I am a Took, and therefore not as uniformed as other Hobbits. And moreover, there is a story between you and my relatives. I am well aware that you are not just any dwarf named Thorin, but Thorin son of Thror son of Thrain, the King-in-Exile of the Dwarves of Erebor. The Rightful King Under the Mountain. And even though when I met you, you were filthy, half-naked and sweaty, and you have come here dressed in a simple tunic, boots and leggings, I imagine you have some very fine clothes, capes of fur and leather surcoats and so on, stashed away. Actually I must say that I am flattered that a big, burly, good-looking fellow such as yourself, and a King to boot, a man who must be, to have known my great grand-uncle, somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 years or so old would ride a hundred miles just to see what I have got under my kilt."

"You sell yourself short, Miss Baggins. I do not often meet a woman who intrigues me enough that I will go out of my way to pursue her. In truth, however, you remind me a little of a Dwarf woman."

"I do? That's flattery I never heard from your nephew. Good heavens, is it time to pluck my moustache, again?" She joked.

"I am an expert on the subject of women, young lady. You ought to listen to what I have to say."

"So I hear from Kili. And every source of idle gossip from Buckland to Bree and back again. Go on, please."

"What else did you hear from Kill?"

"Kili reminds me, in a way, of my cousin Paladin Took. When he opens his mouth, his guts come out. But I was not surprised by what he told me. I had always been fairly sure that the King Under the Mountain did not make deliveries."

"Then he might have told you that I have made a special trip because you're not just another girl to me, Belladonna Baggins. I do not care much for most of the women of Men in this country. The women of Rohan and Gondor are more to my taste. But, the women of the Shirefolk, they are unlike any I have ever known, and you are unlike any of them. In your figure, you remind me of a Dwarf woman, but it is your face, and your manner that so remind me of my own people. Dwarf women take a trade, and go to war, and do all that Dwarf men do, and in addition, they bear children, and keep a house. They are proud, they are strong, and they are fearless. Like you, who walks into a town full of people twice your size, to hire a King-in-Exile to forge you an axe and a mithril shirt, so that you may go to war with the townsfolk who do not understand what it means to be a Took. And, for all of this, you have the pretty, puckish face of a mischievous pixie. And now I discover you are the heiress to and the mistress of a fine piece of property and what must be considered by your people to be a small fortune. You are a very interesting woman, Miss Bella Baggins. Interesting enough for me, a man who has no land and no home, who has wandered the length and breadth of Middle Earth since I was 24, and I am now 160, to make a week's journey for."

"I will be in Bree, next month, for the Midsummer Fair. I see your nephews at every fair in the county, they come to cheer me on. But can I count on you, this time, Master Blacksmith, to come and see how well I fare with your handiwork? Needless to say, I would be glad to invite you for another 8 day journey, back to the Shire. You see, my father always told me that although it is important to have the appearance of virtue, it's not really all that important to have the actual virtue."

Thorin smiled.

"And what kind of woman would I think you if you allowed me to bed you, almost as part of a business transaction?"

"Precisely. But, on a social call, when we are already acquainted, as part of a celebration of victory? Who could fault me?"

"Not me. But tell me, lassie, is there even a chance I might have a kiss goodbye?"

"My willpower only goes so far. In for a penny, in for a pound, Master Blacksmith. If I was to throw myself into your arms, I do not think we would even get so far as the bed."

* * *

"Bella won the tournament, of course. And I stood there and cheered for her as loudly as Fili and Kili. They returned home to the Blue Mountains, like we usually did, after the Midsummer Fair, because work dried up for us in Bree after that. But I went with Bella. We were seven days on our way to the Shire, but it was a month before I was on my way again, Gandalf. I could not tear myself away from Bella, and she didn't want to see the back of me, either. Oh there was more to it than just fookin', sure there was. But, by Durin's beard, if I told you just how much fookin' we done, you wouldn't believe me. The fires of Mount Doom are not as hot as that little Hobbit's Tookish blood! She never had a man like me, and now that she did have me, she wasn't about to let me go before she wore me in. At the time, you know, nobody said anything about love, and by Fall's end, I was in the Blue Mountains, again. But the oddest thing was, I couldn't get Bella Baggins off me mind. I still had one and a half of the ingots I made from Bullroarer Took's mithril platter, and I could have them, alone, for a pretty penny. But I didn't sell it."

"No?"

"No. I made Bella a ring, and a bracelet of Dwarvish knots, to keep on her upper arm to hold back her shirt while she was throwing. And a pair of finely wrought leather arm braces, with mithril studs and eyelets and inlays. And a dagger, with a handle made of the old bones of a long-dead dragon, and mother of pearl. With runes engraved on the blade."

"Kingly gifts, Thorin. Not the kind of presents a man makes for a girl he's just had a bit of a fling with."

"Well, in the Spring, I had a letter from her, asking me if I would rather have my summer in the Shire than in Bree, because the Shirefolk would be more likely to appreciate my work and treat me with respect than the men of Bree. Which was true. But she also said I might stay with her, at Bag End, and that my nephews could stay there too, in the spare room, if they wanted. For as long as we liked. Because, for one thing, she said it was lonely, in that big house, with her father dead for almost two years, and her mother gone back to live with her relatives. And for another, she wrote that she was fairly sure she was in love with me."

"And were you fairly sure you were in love with her."

"I had no doubts about it."

"Wait. You did say you, and your nephews?"

"I did."

"You mean to say that you were in the bedroom down the hall, making love with Bella, while Kili was in that very same house!"

"Sure. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Now, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, I got to sleep in the bleedin' bunk above Fili, who snores like a fookin' goat. And on Sundays, we rested. At laest Kili and I did."

"Now I don't understand! If you and Kili had an…understanding about Bella, even then, why has there been so much trouble during this quest. And where doed Fili come in?"

"Fili? Wherever he can fit in, like as not! Oh, he's a chip off the old block, he is! Too much like his bastard father and his bastard Uncle. He probably had her in the garden every night and laughed at both me and Kili, behind our backs. And he had another girl or three, in the Shire. Mind, at first, Kili wasn't too happy about it. Sharing Bella with his whoremaster uncle. But I told him the truth."

"Which was?"

"That I loved the girl."

* * *

"By Mahal who made us, and Odin who made him, Uncle, how could you do this to me! You may have, you have had, any woman you want, of any race? Why steal mine, when she is the only one I have ever had, and the only one I've got?

"I told you, didn't I? And you said that you and Bella were through."

"I didn't mean it? How could I be through with Bella? And you? Uncle, you never spend more than a week in any one woman's company!"

"What if I tell you that I love her?"

"But you can't! I love Bella! I loved her before you even knew her!"

"Since when?"

"Since always!"

"And I would not stand in your way of it, my lad. But, can we not both love her, then, without bad blood between us? But I would not steal her from you, Kili. Say the word and I'll forget the whole matter."

Kili gave his Uncle a surly look, and saw the most remarkable expression on his face.

"Have you ever been in love, before, Uncle?"

"Once. Many years ago. When I was still at Erebor. She was an Elf, believe it or no. One of Thrandiul's subjects. A niece of his, I believe. Or a cousin. Something like that. Gods, how I loved that woman! I wanted to marry her. I very nearly did, because some idiot had gotten her into trouble, and I was sure it was me. But your great-grandfather, he intervened. He bade me wait until her child was born, because it would be obvious, if it was mine."

Thorin grimaced, and when he spoke, next, his voice was full of bitterness.

"She had a son. And he was as blond, and grey-eyed and pointy-eared and fair as any Elf was, and as unlike me, or any other Dwarf. She begged me to forgive her. Infidelity, I could have forgiven, sure. But getting herself in the club with another man's child, and trying to pass it off as mine? That I could not forgive. I was just a boy. Only 17. But my heart was shattered. And I swore I would never love again. And now, here I am, an old man, in love with a Tookish girl, and not just any girl, but your girl? Life has not been kind to me, Kili. But this is one of it's cruelest tricks, so far."

"It's not so bad, Uncle. And I appreciate your noble gesture, but you can't forget love. It would devastate you. And Bella would be devastated, too. How can I be jealous and cruel, and do harm to two of the people I love most in the world? I would be no better than my other uncle. Fili's father. But you must promise me, Uncle Thorin. That you won't steal Bella away from me, or try to turn her heart from me?"

"There is no truer heart in Middle Earth than Bella's, unless it is yours, my lad. I don't think that could be done. Even if I was to try."

* * *

Inasmuch as Thorin was a proud man, he knew that sometimes his pride and his stubbornness., and the airs he put on were to a fault and not a strength.

Mahal humbled him, though, from the high horse he sought to put himself on, by putting in his nature a gift for profanity, a hot-temper and equally hot-blood.

He'd had a considerable number of women, of all races, since, taking a particular pleasure in bedding the women of his enemy, the elves.

It was said that all Elves were beautiful and cold, but in Thorin's experience, it was only the men who were cold.

It had occurred to him that these Elf women took a particular pleasure in bedding a Dwarf, to spite their cold husbands, knowing how Elf men thought of Dwarves as lesser beings, but it remained true that the only emotion stronger than lust which Thorin had ever known, since he was a beardless boy, to be invested in sex was spite.

The combination, however, of his love for Bella, and his desire for her, and hers for him was alchemical.

Theirs was a fiery affair, because Bella Baggins, of the clan of the Tooks was as proud and stubborn as he was.

They had few quiet moments, when they were not feasting or drinking or laughing, they were quarreling or talking over great subjects in great agitation, and all things that they did together seemed to lead to bed.

If they even made it to the bed.

Thorin Oakenshield's love for Bella Baggins was quite unlike the love of his youth, although it had the same hallmarks, but it was shot through with lust and fire so that his lust and his love for Bella were so intertwined that they could not be separated.

Truly, Thorin understood what men meant when the say they burned for a woman, and he understood how it was that Men, Dwarves and Elves alike could go mad from it.

* * *

"When I got to Bag End, I found that Bella had made this fur-lined cape for me, to replace the one that I had been wearing for at least fifty years, as it looked fairly ratty by then. And I presented her with the gifts that I had made her, and I told her that I loved her, too. I never promised her marriage, though, Gandalf. She never asked it of me and I never promised it."

"How long were you in the Shire?"

"All that Spring and Summer. That made it a year since we had met. And this past year, all that Spring, and Summer."

"And everything went along smoothly?"

"Sure it did. I know it sounds odd, but Kili and I, we never had a day of trouble with each other. And if Fili was in the picture, as I now suspect he was, he never made a fuss, himself. I mean, it was all in the family, you know. Sometimes, these things, they canna be helped. But now, I suppose now you'll want to know how I came to fook it all up."

"Yes."

"It was money, of course. I sold something Bella gave me. For money, for this quest. At least I told her it was for my quest, for my birthright, for my people. It was the only reason she allowed me to sell it. Because I used all the rest she had in me and all the love she had for me, to convince her so. Then, I turned around and I spent the money from the transaction on equipment for me smithy in the Blue Mountains, and a horse and wagon to take it home in. I tried to explain to Bella that, indirectly, it was still for the quest. But I can see where she wouldn't hear of it. That was the end. I needed the equipment, Gandalf. To do the last of the work that it took to finance this Quest. But I did more work than just that, and I made a lot of money. Enough to put some aside, in the Blue Mountains. Just in case."

Thorin looked at the ground.

"Fookin' dragon-sickness, it'll be the death of all my line, yet. They ought to melt that gold down, and hold me down and stick a funnel in me mouth, and pour it down me throat until I'm dead from it. I tried to explain to her, it's a sickness, sometimes it can't be helped. But that's a piss poor explanation. For what I done."

"Thorin Oakenshield, what that Bella Baggins gave you did you sell?"

"Her. Her love Her body. Some might say, for all of that, her very soul."

Gandalf took his pipe from his teeth.

"Do you mean to say that you…that you sold Bella Baggins' body to a man? That you…that you whored her…that you packed her off, to some place and told her to lie with some man! For money?" the wizard sputtered.

"That's exactly what I did."

* * *

The red-haired man looked down at the small, put pretty woman, in dismay.

The smile she wore might as well have been painted on, and when he moved, she shrank from him, and though she still kept up a false face, he saw tears in her eyes.

She was very young, and very frightened.

Thorfinn Goatsfoot was disgusted with himself, but more disgusted with Thorin Oakenshield.

Truly, in his lust for gold, the Dwarf's depravity knew no bottom.

"How old are you, girl?"

"Thirty-three."

"And a Hobbit, aren't you? Which means by your people's reckoning, you're not much more than a girl! By all the Gods, I'm a short man, but I'm a foot and then some taller than you! And the look on your face!"

Thorfinn sought to put the girl at ease, and to explain himself.

"You must understand, young Hobbit, that crafty Dwarf of yours, he's not usually given to consorting with decent women. His truck is in actresses, barmaids and whores. Women who have been known to trade their services for money or goods, now and then. Not that I blame them, a woman with no father or husband or brothers to protect her, she has to make a living in this world. But I'd wager if you'd been touched by any hand but Thorin's, it wasn't more than one. I cannot do this! I will not!"

Bella sighed with relief.

"I am both glad and sorry. Glad I don't have to go through with it, no offence against you, sir. But sorry, for how will Thorin now fund his quest?"

"His quest? Is that what he told you, the greedy old bastard? I'm only a blacksmith, like himself, from a ways down the Great East Road, closer to the Valley of the Elves. I'm not as fine a smith as Thorin, I'll admit, but I'm richer. I offered to sell him a new anvil, and a larger forge, and a rickety wagon and an old nag to carry it all back to the Blue Mountains. He either can't afford my price or he's too cheap, and it's my vote for the latter. He offered me a week with a woman, in exchange. But I won't go through with it, now. I cannot. You remind me of my own daughter, who is about the same age as you, in men's reckoning. If my apprentice, whom she is engaged to marry, offered to sell her to a stranger for a pittance, I would cut off his head!"

There was immediately a great pounding on the door.

"Thorfinn Goatsfoot, open this door! It's Mr. Butterbur, the Inkeeper! For the love of all the gods that men hold dear, do not touch that girl! For one thing she is a Took, and the clan of Tooks will have your head for it! For another, I am acquainted with the family and I know the girl and I will not have her defiled in my own inn! And for a third, Kili, nephew of Thorin Oakenshield, has come to settle his Uncle's debt! Open this door or I will call the sheriff and have you arrested for rape!"

Mr. Goatsfoot opened the door.

"Barnaby, what kind of a man do you take me for? I would not dishonor such a sweet, pretty young girl! One brave enough to give away the most precious thing she has, her own honor, for a bastard such as Thorin! Pardon me for saying so, about your Uncle, young Master Dwarf."

"Under the circumstances, Mr. Goatsfoot, I might have to agree with you. Here is your money, sir."

"I can't take your money, Kili lad. Or your brother's. You work like dogs for your Uncle, and he gives you pennies in return."

"It is not my money or Fili's, it is out Uncle's. I will answer to him, later for it."

"It's he who should answer to you. And this poor girl."

"I am not a poor girl, Mr. Goatsfoot. I am a Took and I am the mistress of Bag End, in the Shire. And Thorin will answer to me. But not in person. Kili, the next time you see your Uncle, you may tell him for me that the next time he shows his face to me, outside of any business dealings we might have, I will put my axe through it. Can you forgive me? For doing this terrible thing? I would understand if you wanted nothing more to do with me. Now that your Uncle, whoremaster that he is, has made me his tart."

"Bella, you didn't do it. And even if you had, how could I abandon you? Especially after you have been betrayed and deceived? You have done nothing wrong, so there is nothing for me to forgive. I'll take you home, now, if that's alright with you."

"I can manage on my own. But I don't mind you coming with me."

It was only after Bree was behind them, that Bella cried.

"Don't cry, Bella. I love you. I'm sure Uncle does too. Really. He's just…well, he can't help but be the man he is. And he's not always the best man he could be."

* * *

Thorin did not look up from the ground, and his voice broke with emotion.

"I sold her, Gandalf! I sold her like a cheap pimp, to screw for a blacksmith from these parts we're travelling through. For the paltry items I've already spoken of. She was to satisfy the debt at the Prancing Pony. In Bree. I took her there, meself."

"I know the keeper of the Prancing Pony! Barnaby Butterbur is not that kind of a man who would allow such a thing to take place under his roof."

"No, he isn't. When Bella got there, Goatsfoot, the blacksmith, backed out of the bargain. In disgust. Kili and Butterbur stormed the battlements, anyway, and Kili paid my debt to Goatsfoot. When he and Fili found out what I'd done, we had a hell of a row. I never saw Kili so angry. I awoke in the morning to find Kili gone from our wagon. Fili explained that Kili took the money, and he was going to go save Bella, and that he, Fili had stayed behind to make sure that that I didn't get in the way. Well, I didn't. I was glad the boys did what they did. As for Butterbur and Goatsfoot, I'm sure they explained to Bella that they knew me well, and that for whatever virtue I had, that I was a hard man, greedy and money-grubbing and so obsessed with my lust for power and revenge that I would sacrifice anything, just to get my hands on some gold and get a little closer to my goal. As it turns out Barnaby Butturbur was a good friend of the Old Took. And of the Shirefolk, in general. And I had been doing business with him for thirty years, long enough for him to know what kind of bastard I really am, and to put the granddaughter of his old friend wise against the likes of me. And the worst part of it is, to make things right, Bella gave the money to Fili, that Kili had taken from me. Neither of them would speak to me until they returned to the Blue Mountains, that winter. The whole matter eventually drove a wedge between Bella and Kili, too, and she met that bastard Elf, who led her up the path. Oh I made a lot of noise about riding to her rescue, when I heard about Coruadan, but it was Kili who did it. He's a good lad. So is Fili. I know I don't serve another chance with Bella. But I don't just want it, damn my eyes, I need it!"

Gandalf shook his head.

"Thorin Oakenshield, of all the things that you and your father and your grandfather have done, for the love of power and revenge and hoarded gold, this is the worst! Could I not see that you are disgusted by what you have done, I would abandon you and your quest, and take your nephews and Bella with me! You must make this right, Thorin. If for nothing else, then for your honor, and the honor of the line of Durin! You'll have to leave off being haughty and officious and infallible for a bit. In fact I do believe you might not only have to apologize, you may also have to beg, grovel and eat crow."

"I have apologized. It did some good. Maybe if I offered her a double share of me treasure. She knows how much the gold means to me."

Gandalf stood up and pounded his staff on the ground, making a white light issue from it that blinded Thorin, and knocked him to his knees.

"Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, it is not your hoarded gold, or the promise of it that Belladonna Baggins wants or needs! If you want to compensate her, offer her your love, above your love of treasure! And your loyalty, above your devotion to revenge! And what part of your heart remains that is not eaten up by your lust for power! Offer these truly, and give of them freely and fully! Then, it is possible, that you might make amends."

Gandalf sat back down again, and lit his pipe, and Thorin got up from the ground.

"She will not believe me. Bella has said that I must regain her trust. And that I have, some. Well, you're a wizard, Gandalf? How do you regain a woman's trust after you've lied to her and sold her body to a stranger for such a pittance that she can throw the money back in your face without even blinking an eye about it?"

"I have no idea. But you should make it your quest, as we travel to the Lonely Mountain, to find a way to regain her trust. We will face many perils, and many choices, of many kinds. In one of them, I hope, your answer will lie."

Thorin was thinking of what to say next when the peace and quietly of the night was disturbed, from the other side of the fire, by an argument.

Amongst Thorin's nephews, and his burglar.

Fili was pulling Bella's hair, and shouting at her, calling her names, and for her part, she was shouting back, and Kili was trying to get between the two of them and break up the melee.

"And these boys think they are ready for marriage? We'll talk more of this, later. Right now I have to go sort out this quarrel." Thorin said to Gandalf.

He quickly made his way over to the other side of the fire.

"Fili! Are you mad! Let the girl go!" Thorin ordered his nephew.

But Fili paid him no mind.

Thorin slapped Fili across the face, like you would a disobedient child.

The insult stung Fili more than the slap, and he let go of Bella's hair.

Kili pulled her away from Fili, and Bella angrily pushed him away, too.

"Don't fuss over me! I could have handled it, myself!" she protested.

"He went mad, Uncle! I was asleep, and all of the sudden, he just went mad!" Kili tried to explain.

And Fili still had one of the clips from Bella's braid, in his hands.

Thorin grabbed it from him, and restrained his impulse to strike his nephew, again, as this time, he would have, as if Fili had been an opponent in a brawl.

"Foolish boy! Your fight isn't with the girl, it's with me! Well? Here I am! Do you want to call me names, and try and tear my hair out?"

"It's not your fault that my brother has got us both involved with a fookin' whore!" Fili yelled.

He rushed at Bella, again, and she stomped on his instep and then socked him in the face.

"You hypocritical bastard! I don't need to be called a whore by the man who broke my maidenhead in a hay wagon at the Breeland Midsummer Fair! You didn't mind my liking to get me leg over, then, or since, have you? But, now, all the sudden, I'm a whore? Well, damn it if I am, for you, who took me for the first time like I was one, and your Uncle who sold me for pennies! If I am a whore, then it's you and Thorin who have made me one!" Bella screamed.

Her lip trembled, and tears ran from Fili's eyes, even as blood ran out of his nose.

"But Bella, you don't understand! I want to make it right. I want to marry you. I love you. My Uncle may turn your head because he's the great Thorin Oakenshield, and my little brother, who always follows where I go, and does what I do, he may know all the pretty words in the world, but I'm your man, Bella. I always have been. I always will be. If you were to be braided, I should have done it! Or at least, Kili!" Fili protested.

"You have no right, boy! I have asked her for you and for your brother, as much as for myself!" Thorin interrupted.

"I didn't ask, Fili! Thorin just went ahead and did it."

A murmur of shock passed through the whole Company, and they quit pretending not to notice.

"Without your permission? Thorin, did you do that?' Balin insisted.

He waded into the fray.

"I told Bella I wanted to braid her! She said yes." Thorin protested.

"Having no idea what it meant!" Balin reminded him.

"What? Do I have to marry him, now?" Bella asked.

No. But it is a very serious step. Dwarf fathers and mothers braid their daughters hair when they are children, but when a girl is older she may braid her own hair, or her father, a brother, he may continue to do so. When a man asks a woman if he may braid her hair, or her beard, he is volunteering to take over the position that her father held in her life. It is usually accompanied by a proposal of marriage, and gifts. If a woman accepts, she is not bound to marry the man, but it is a sign to him, and to all, that she is seriously considering him for a husband. However, a man must be of age, to formally propose marriage. Fili will not be of age for another twenty years, and Kili for thirty. However, if a young man wishes to marry before he is of age, then his father may make the proposal, and braid his intended's hair. The question remains, Thorin, were you asking for Miss Baggins hand for yourself, or for your nephews?" Balin finished.

"I think that depends on how many of us live to see the end of this quest." Kili interjected.

"Taht si exactly what the determining factor will be." Thorin pronounced.

"Oh. Well. I thought it was something like that. I knew it was important. But I never thought you gave a damn about it, Fili." Bella said

"I do." Fili snapped.

Fili held his head back to try to stop his nose from bleeding, but all he did was choke himself.

"Are you happy now, boy? Is it broken?" Thorin asked.

"No! I didn't hit him that hard. Still, I feel awful for having done it. What we need is some athelas leaves. Let me go look in my pack." Bella decided.

"Let me see it!" Thorin demanded,

Fili backed away from him.

"Don't shy away from me, Fili, what's got into you? For two years there was no trouble between the three of us about Bella, now you want to start some? And what do you mean, puttin' your hands on a woman, in violence, when you are not at war and she is not an enemy? Is this the fail-safe, of your plan? Are you going to follow, then, in your father's footsteps? You raised Hell with me, as if I'd be driven mad by jealously, and then what do you do? And you boys think yourselves ready for marriage! One of you leaves a woman, alone, and half-dressed in the wood, where there could be any manner of danger! Orcs, trolls, highywaymen, wild animals, but off you run without a thought, Kili! And you, Fili, all it takes for you to fly into a stupid jealous rage is for me to take the initiative to make an honest woman of Bella, for all the whoring of her than you and I have done! At least your brother is attentive to the girl, and he was honorable to her from the start! In a hay wagon? Odin's eye, boy, what kind of disrespect to a maid is that? And what else have you done for the girl, but drag her off into the wood!"

"I ran that Elf off as soon as I heard he was coming around. And he stayed gone while I was there! But trust my little brother to go on about who what Bella wanted was what she wanted, and dither around about going to her, himself, so long that the bastard came back!" Fili snapped.

"Fili, you don't own Bella. I don't own Bella. Even if we marry her, we do not own her! And if she wanted to marry another man, who were we to stop her?"

"Who else was going to stop her?" Fili demanded.

Bella returned with the athelas leaves, with a paste of the dried berries mixed with water spread out over them.

"Hold these under your nose, Fili. No one was going to stop me. No one but myself."

Thorin shook his head.

"I left the matter of this Coruadan to you boys, and you both made a mess of it! And for all of it, Bella is supposed to marry one or both of you, and entrust all her father worked for his whole life to you, and bear your children, and look after you? Not while I live and breathe will I stand to see you boys take advantage of this woman's good nature, any more than you have! You'll marry when you show me you are men, and not before it! Now, go to sleep, and don't make any more trouble for me, or you can turn around and run back to the Blue Mountains and your mother's apron strings!"

Kili looked abashed, and he quietly went back to his blankets.

But Fili, he had to get up on his hind legs and kick, a little.

"Do you think you'll live forever, old man?" he demanded.

"No. But no matter how long I live, you'll have to wait till I'm dead to inherit what's mine, Fili son of Vargbrand!"

Fili was taken aback, hearing himself called the son of Vargbrand.

"Durin's beard, Uncle, I am acting the son of an orc's son, aren't I?"

"You are! And you never have before! What has come over you, lad? You've never had a violent day in your life, Fili! Only when battle demands it. Whats' happened to my devil-may-care, good-natured nephew?" Thorin demanded.

Fili looked at his feet.

"He's fallen in love. And he doesn't want to have to creep up a secret stair to see the girl he loves when his Uncle can come in and out the front door, as he pleases." Fili muttered.

"That's just the way I feel about it, Fili, lad. I raised you! You're my boy, and I'll be goddamned if I'll play second fiddle to you."

"So, what do we do about it?" Fili asked.

"I have an idea. You two marry Bella. I don't care what door I come in. As long as I'm coming in." Kili volunteered.

"Aren't you lot forgetting someone in this discussion? You know? Me? Maybe I'll decide to just leave things the way they have been. Without getting married at all. Everything was going along fine, before I started with all this marrying business. I mean, we have this dragon to take care of, don't we? Can't we just agree that nobody has to play second fiddle to anybody else, and figure the rest out if we are not all dead?" Bella suggested.

She pushed in between the three of them, and jabbed her finger into Thorin's chest.

"And another thing! Do you want to know what else troubles, Fili? And Kili? They don't want to die! Not to mention, the Blue Mountains are their home. Do you think he and Kili went with you on this quest because they give a damn about a mountain they've never seen, and a treasure they never had? They're here because of you, Thorin Oakenshield! Because they love you and they are loyal to you, and they believe in you! Just like the rest of us fools on this fool's errand! And in our last months before we face death, and a nasty death at that, if it's all the same to you we would rather not be he'd rather not be marched along with a whip at our backs, as if Smaug is going somewhere if we do not get to the Lonely Mountain, at double time! No one will say so to you, because you are their King, but I am not a Dwarf and Hobbits do not have a King! So I will say so! And you ought to listen!"

"Well? Hands up everyone who thinks I'm driving us all too hard?"Thorin asked.

He was surprised that every hand in the Company came up like a shot.

"I was going to say something, myself, Thorin. As was Balin." Dwalin interjected.

"I have already said something." Gandlaf cut in.

"Well, I can see one thing, clearly. When my good-natured nephew begins to have fits of temper, and an old warhorse like Dwalin makes a complaint, then I know that I am driving my Company too hard. We will rest here, for a few days, and when we press on, I will not drive you all as if the dragon is at your heels. Even though he has long been at mine. As for you, Fili lad, it took me a damn long time to braid Bella's thick hair out of her eyes! I'll not do it twice in one night! Take this clip and fix it, before you go to sleep. Go on. Off with you. And you, girl, we'll have no fisticuffs in this family! You bloodied Fili's nose, so you fix him up, and make sure his clothes are clean."

"But, Uncle Thorin, but I…"

"Don't explain yourself, lad. There's no jealousy in this circle, unless you bring it with you. And try not to wake me when you return. It's no easy thing, making your peace with a Tookish woman. I'm tired. Will you keep watch for me Dwalin, and make sure they come back?"

"If they aren't back in an hour, I'll go and get them."

"Good. Now let the old man rest his old bones. As for the rest of you, the show is over. Back to sleep!""

Fili left with Bella, and Dwalin began his watch.

Thorin started to drop off to sleep, feeling as though he had accomplished much, this day.

"Uncle?"

"What is it, Kili?' Thorin asked, without opening his eyes.

"Are you staring to feel old?"

"After going two rounds with Belladonna Baggins? In less than two hours? I don't think I will, tomorrow, but I feel old, tonight."

"I haven't even got one. Yet."

"Well, don't let your older brother push you around! Tell him Bella has to do up your braids, for once. And if he asks you where they are, tell him she braids your hair where he can't see it."

Kili laughed.

It was a fine sound for Thorin to fall asleep by.


End file.
